Year: 1879

Writing in Scri6ner of DR.. Roosa's
recent address before the New York
State Medical society on the Relations
of the Medical Profession to the State"
DR.. Holland thus discusses a very i'm
portant topic:


Doctor Roosa very wisely says that
there should be a board Of health in
every county. and every town, and that
there should be no man upon it who has
not scientific, medical or legal educa-.
ton. He furthermore says that "not
schoolhouse. not jail. not hospital,
not q sewer, should be built unless COM
petent sanitary advice, with power to
enforce it, be given" This is all right
as fer as it goes, but it does not go half
far enough. The truth is that every
private house that goes up should be
built under public sanitary supervision.
Men are dying in New York every day
because houses ere built improperly.
The arrangements for plumbing and
ventilation are not only incompetent,
but utterly vicious and murderous.
Men put up buildings all over the coun-
try just as they please. We have built
houses for human dwellings, and we
have never yet been questioned by any
public officer as to how many fatal traps
We had set for human life. House
poisoning has now become the most
common form of poisoning. Diphtheria,
pneumonia and typhoid fever are the
constant, daily demonstration of vicious
modes of building, and there is no au-
thority, apparently, to prevent the form
alton of these diseases. A builder
puts up block, and offers his houses
for sale. The buyer sees everything
fair, for the sources OF disease are COW
cred from sight; but he moves in, and
one after another of his family sickens
and dies, and he learns, at last, that he
has dealt with criminal, and that the
municipality or State has afforded him
no protection.


The truth is that We not only need to
have boards Of health established in
many places where they are not, but we
need to have their powers much en-
larged where they exist. No one, we
suppose, can doubt the great useful
ness of our New York board of health;
but if they could be armed with powers
that would enable them to act more di-
rectly upon the prevention of disease,
they could be much more useful. If
they could have authority to dictate the
plumbing and ventilation of every struc-
ture, private as well as public, erected
in this city, they could save the city a
| large percentage of its cruelest mortali-
ty. II they could have the control OF
the cleaning of the streets, does any one
doubt that they would greatly improve
the health of the city? We talk about
the adulteration of food as If it were
great thing, and our board of health
| busies itself about it in the absence OF
other work; but the adulteration, the
absolute poisoning, of the air we breathe,
is Of almost infinitely more Importance.
| Doctor Rooaa speaks of what is done
in the way of preventive medicine by
our wise system of quarantine, by which
the city has been saved from epidemics.
With our yellow fever lesson of last
year fresh in memory, it really seems as
| if towns should learn something.
There is no question that all these epi-
denies become fatal in the degree in
which the air. is vitiated by poisonous
odors. When yellow fever or cholera
visits place, it becomes a terrible or
mild visitation, according to the con-
dition which it finds. III it finds peo-
pie already poisoned with foul streets
and bad drainage, it finds food for a
great and grave mortality. If it finds
place where everything is pure and
sweet, it does not stay long or work
such mischief There are some States
which have a board of heath, or may
have one, in every town, armei with a
considerable amount of power-with
the power, at least, of holding inquest
on private premises, and determining
what shall be done to remedy evils;
but what we really want most is q wider
power of prevention, such as shall make
it incumbent upon every builder to se-
cure the approval of such board be-
fore he can live in his house himself or
offer il for sale or rent,