The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-11-03
FOR A BOARD OF HEALTH.
The Citizens Sanitary Associations
Plan For a State Organization.

The Public Health Committee Not in
sympathy With the National Quar-
antine Service and Wants State
Board Properly Organized and Gov
erned.
The public health committee of the Cit
teens Sanitary Association has mapped
ont plan for the organization of a state
hoard of health. AT its last meeting the
committee passed resolutions condemuing
the methods of the national quarantine
service and calling upon the representa-
tives from Chatham county in the legis-
lature to secure, if possible, the passage
of bill providing for a state board of
health. The resolutions are as follows:
Whereas, All towns and cities on the coast
of Georgia and also those on rivers emptying
into the Atlantic ocean are liable to vista
tions from yellow fever and may suffer from
an epidemic Of that disease during the COM
ing summer; and
Whereas, The experience acquired during
this year has clearly demonstrated that all
matters which involve the political the com
rnercial and the sanitary interests of the
state should be under the direction of the
state authorities, as in New York. Louisiana,
ETC., and not under the direction OF the pOliti-
cal machine, called the Nat
fonal Quarantine Bureau the
working of which is placed under the sole
management OF the supervising surgeon gen
eral Of the marine hospital service. who.
however honest he may be as an individual
can under the authority of his position, ig-
more the results Of 300 years experience. or
the latest sanitary researches. and operate
this machine under retnue of petty officials
and through their fundamentally enforce
marine quarantine, interstate quarantine and
inland quarantine, and by means Of the "one
dnll piDf pd dam
purposes retain and employ an army of
T'vellow fever experts" surgeons, assistant
surgeons doctors, stewards, nurses, inspec-
tors and guards and,
Whereas, 1t matters little to an
official holding his commission from
the general government whether the
measures adopted prevent the return of vel
low fever or the spread Of the disease;
whether they entail unnecessary suffering and
privatiOn upon the people of the stricken
town or city, whether the minionS who do the
bidding of said official invade private rights
or trample on personal liberty so long as this
new appendage Of Capitalization be tolerated
by our people, and
Whereas. Such bungling methods as those
which characterized the management of the
Brunswick epidemic by the marine hospital
quarantine service were calculated to produce
panic and impel the authorities of every town
and city for hundreds of miles from the
infected district, at great inconvenience
and expense, to impose quarantine upon
all persons coming from the infected dis
tricts and against all neighboring towns and
cities, when there was no necessity for the
same; therefore, be it,.
Resolved, That the members of both
branches of the legislature, particularly the
representatives from Chatham county, be,
and are hereby requested. to support any bill
which may be introduced during the present
session to establish for Georgia a state board
of health embodying proper provisions for
the regulation Of sanitation in the state; and
that they be further requested to secure, in
following
provisions:
Providing for the establishment of state
board OF health, with the necessary powers TO
render 1t efficient, composed of a chief execu-
tive and eleven district members, one of
whom shall be selected from each congress
Sional district
Making it the duty of said state board Of
health to inquire into the sanitary condition
of every countyin the state and provide for
the removal, as far as practicable OF all
nulsances capable of producing sickness
therein.
Making it the duty of said state board of
health to assist in the prosecution Of all i'm
pOrtant sanitary work and to invest 1t with
authority, on the breaking out of yellow fe-
yer, Asiatic cholera, small pox or other dan
gerOus diseases among men or domestic ami
mails, to employ meansto prevent the spread
thereof.
10 authorize said state board of health to
provide rules and regulations for controlling
the management Of epldemics during their
prevalence, and impose penalties for the VIC
latiOn Of such rules and regulations.
TO require the establishment in every
county in the state of q sanitary board, with
officers invested with adequate powers to en-
a0le them to ferret out every nuisance detri
mental to health within such county and,
when practicable, abate the same Also to
invest such county sanitary board with au-
thorlty to call upon the member of the state
board of health Of the district within which
such county is located, to investigate the
nature of any suspicious case of sickness,
among men or cattle, in such county. Also to
make 1t the duty of such district member to
at once make the necessary inVestga-
ton, when so called upon, and
upon the detection by him of the existence of
yellow fever, cholera or small pox within
such county. Immediately apprise the chief
executive of the state board of health by tele-
gram Of the first case detected and when the
same broke out, and of any other case or
cases he shall find then existing in the county.
Resolved further, That the legislature be
and is hereby p5titioned to appropriate and
set aside $4,000 to Ire used by such state
board of health as it shall create, whenever
the same shall be needed for the management
of eDidemicS or the relief of eDidemicS cauSed