The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1876-06-10

The town authorities in their eX Oticio
capacity as boards of health, were useful
instruments to the State Board, in enabling
them to reach the people, and were valua-
BILE centers for the distribution of sanitary
information. The work Of the State Board
of Michigan was facilitated by similar acts.
But in Maryland, we found no such agen
city, created by the City Council, is the
only health authority in the State. There
is not among existing statutes, one general
law looking to the preservation of life, if
we except the practically unenforced legis-
lation in regard to vaccination. Nuisances
are abatable only upon indictment by the
Grand Jury, and prosecution at common
law, except in the rare instance where the
power to abate is clearly given, in the char
ter of incorporated towns, to the town
authorities. Now, although this want of
system and health laws has operated, in
greater or less degree, to the hindrance of
our work, it will proved no disadvantage
in the construction of comprehensive
system of sanitary legislation and admin
istration. No old systems are to be torn
down to make place for new methods; no
old agencies displaced; no prejudice fos-
tered by custom, or excited by change, to
be combated. The recent growth of pop
ular interest in hygiene has prepared our
people for the acceptance of sanitary ad :
ministration.
In urging the enactment of general
health laws, we would not be understood
as deprecating other agencies in the work
of improving our sanitary condition.
"The time has gone by when people can
be dragooned into cleanliness, or be made
virtuous by police regulations, and hence
it is that the most thoughtful among prac
tical reformers of the present day base
their hope of sanitary progress on the edu-
cation of the masses as the groundwork of
national health. The people must be taught
that good conduct, personal cleanliness,
and the avoidance of all excuses, are the
first principles of health-preservation
that mental and physical training must go
hand finland in the rearing and guidance
of youth; and that morality does not con-
sist 50 much in blind observance of the
formula of empty creeds, as in hearty
submission to precepts of health. Nor is
this all. They must be interested system
atically in the general results of sanitary
progress, and become more intimately ac-
Guainted with the social and material
causes by which it is impeded." Wilson
But judicious laws are of themselves
most successful educators and should go
hand in hand with other means of popular
instruction. "1t cannot be denied that
there are multitudes in all our large towns
so heavily burdened with the load Of
vitiated heritage, and so hemmed in with
the barriers of foul air, filth, and want,
that teaching and preaching can only be
felt as bitter mockerieS, unless these bar
riers are first removed. Herein lie the
duties of sanitary authorities, and in their
compulsion by legislative means, there is
at last some hope that amelioration and
enlightenment may penetrate even to these
depths"
In demanding legislation in the interests
of public health, it is incumbent upon sani
tarians to show:
/. That many of the common diseases
are preventable; and
?. That they are preventable in the sense
of being dependent on removable condi
lions which operate on the people as a
whole, or on considerable masses Of indi-
viduals, and are such conditions as dis
tinctly contravene public hygiene. And
that the means necessary for their extin-
guishment, as in small-p are such as can
only be efficiently put in force by the power
of the State.
The elaborate discussion of these propo
stions cannot be attempted in this paper,
and but few of the more notable diseases
which are labeled by sanitarians prerentd-
Jle, will be taken as illustrations.
TO Re CONTINUED.