The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-28

criminals, not because of present need of
| such a law, but to keep in line with other
states.
OF specific laws enacted probably the
| most important We're the Seeley bill in
New York, reorganizing the state de-
partment of health, and the bill enacted
in Michigan for the creation of state
commission to make a survey of the state
and to obtain accurate statistics regard
Ing the number of detectives, delinquents,
and dependents in the state with the
causes for such condition so far as ascer-
tainable. The Seeley law, which was one
Of Governor Sulzer's administration
measures, makes the state department Of
health an actual executive department of
the state government and greatly in
creases its powers and effectiveness.
Colorado, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,
North Dakota and Wisconsin adopted
laws requiring some guaranty of physical
healthfulness as condition for a mar
riage license. Kansas, Michigan, Ore
gon and Wisconsin provided for the legal
sterilization of criminals and detectives
North Carolina and Tennessee provided
for the registration of births and Deaths
Illinois again failed to provide for vital
statistic registration as she has for 10
years past, but established an epleptic
colony.
Indiana provided for sanitary school
houses; Massachusetts authorized county
meteorological labora tories; Michigan Gre
ated state commission on hotel SANTA
ton: Missouri created board of ad
minstrators for state institutions and en-
acted laws regulating occupational dis
eases and the employment of women;
New York provided for work shops for
tuberculosis convalescents and for medi-
cal supervision of country schools Ore
gon adopted probably the most advanced
law in existence on advertising, forbidding
the advertising of cures for venereal dis
eases in newspapers and making the news
paper proprietor or publisher equally lia-
BILE with the advertiser; Rhode Island
provided for factory inspection and for
the regulation of child labor; Texas pro-
hibited the pollution of streams, created
a tuberculosis commission, and also Gre
ated a state child welfare bureau; Wash
ington authorized counties to erect hos
pitas; West Virginia provided for a
whole time state health officer. Wisconsin
not only authorized incorporated cities to
use money derived from local licenses
for the purpose of preventing disease, but
she reorgarized her state board of health
and increased its appropriation. Wyo-
ming strengthened her pure food law
and regulated the sale of habit-forming
drugs
Progress on the whole has been as sat
isfactory could be expected under ex-
listing conditions of lack of coordination
and want of any definite plan. What is
needed in the public health field, as in
many other lines, is the careful colec
ton of data by some central body, the
exhaustive study of existing conditions
and needs, the formulation of few
model bills on the most fundamental sub
jects, and the gradual development of a
coherent system of public health laws
and of a perfected, co-ordinated public
health machinery. Efforts in that direc-
tion for the last % years have been spas
modic. individual and too much inf1u-
enced by temporary fads. A few care
fully framed and broadly conceived pub
lie health laws, properly enforced, would
be of far more value to the public than
the mass of legislation on special sub
jects which is accommodating on the stat
ute books of many states.