465), Mr. Justice Miller, delivering the opinion of the court (Mr. Justice Bradley alone dissenting), used this language:

"Whenever Congress shall undertake to provide a general system of quarantine all the State laws inconsistent with said enactment will be abrogated, but until this is done the laws of the State on the subject are valid."

Mr. Justice Miller also said in this case:

"For while it (the statute of Louisiana in question) may be a police regulation in the sense that all provisions for the health, comfort, and security of the citizens are police regulations and are an exercise of the police power, it has been said more than once in this court that even where such powers are so exercised as to come within the domain of Federal authority as defined by the Constitution, the latter must prevail. (Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat, 1; Henderson . Mayor, 92 U. S., 259; New Orleans Gas Co. v. La. Lgt. Co., 115 U. S.)"

In the case of Hannibal and St. Joe Railway v. Husen (95 U. S., 465), a statute of Missouri prohibiting the driving or conveying of any Texas, Indian, or Mexican cattle into the State between March 1 and November 1 of each year was declared unconstitutional. Mr. Justice Strong, delivering the opinion of the court (which was unanimous), said:

"While we unhesitatingly admit that a State may pass sanitary laws and laws for the protection of life, liberty, health, or property within its borders; while it may prohibit persons and animals suffering under contagious or infectious diseases, or convicts, etc., from entering the State; while for the purposes of self-protection it may establish quarantine and reasonable inspection laws, it may not interfere with transportation into or through the State beyond what is absolutely necessary for its self-protection."

Under the decisions in Peete v. Morgan and Morgan Steamship Company . Louisiana it is clear that Congress has the power to control the operation of State quarantine laws when, in its opinion, they injuriously affect commerce among the States, and whenever Congress enacts a general quarantine law all State laws in conflict with it are abrogated.

In the recent case of Hennington v. Georgia (163 U. S. Reports, p. 309) Justice Harlan, in delivering the opinion of the court, states:

"If the inspection, quarantine, or health laws of a State, passed under its reserved power to provide for the health, comfort, and safety of its people, come into conflict with an act of Congress, passed under its power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, such local regulations, to the extent of the conflict, must give way in order that the supreme law of the land—an act of Congress passed in pursuance of the Constitution—may have unobstructed operation.”

It would be strange, indeed, if, when a State refuses or neglects to make proper laws and regulations against contagious diseases, or provide for their suppression and control, Congress must stand helpless while commerce among the States is destroyed and our citizens slaughtered by an epidemic.

The committee, with a deep sense of the responsibility resting upon them, after earnest inquiry and deliberation, recommend the passage of this measure with the following amendments:

At the end of line 20, page 5, insert the following:

"Provided, however, That nothing in this act contained shall be so construed as to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to interfere with the State or municipal authorities in the regulation of local affairs so long as the introduction and spread of diseases are properly controlled and treated: Provided further, That there shall be no interference with authorized medical officers charged with the duty of carrying out the authorized regulations, who shall be permitted to freely pass, with such property and appliances as may be designated in such regulations, from State to State and from point to point in a State, and remain at such points as long as

may be deemed necessary to properly control all infected places and treat such infection and prevent the spread of the same."

At the end of section 8, page 8, add the following:

"That the Secretary of the Treasury, on the recommendation of the SurgeonGeneral of the Marine-Hospital Service, shall, whenever he may deem it necessary, appoint in each port exposed to yellow fever, or where such disease has ever been introduced, a port sanitary inspector, who shall have been a practicing physician for at least five years before his appointment at said port, and who shall be familiar with the symptoms of the disease herein before mentioned, and skilled in its prevention and treatment.

"It shall be the duty of the port sanitary inspectors or quarantine physicians so appointed to make careful examination of the sanitary condition and surroundings of the ports where they reside and for which they are appointed, and to report each month, or oftener if required so to do, the facts as to the sanitary condition of such ports to the Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service, with such suggestions and recommendations as they may think necessary and proper. The said port sanitary inspectors shall perform such other duties in treating yellow fever or other infectious diseases as the Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service shall direct; and they shall each be paid from the Treasury, upon vouchers signed by the Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service, the sum of fifteen hundred dollars annually, payable in equal quarterly installments on the first days of January, April, July, and November."

[House of Representatives. Report 1238, Part 2. Fifty-fifth Congress, second session.] ADDITIONAL QUARANTINE, ETC., MARINE-HOSPITAL SERVICE.

VIEWS OF THE MINORITY.

The undersigned, members of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, are unable to concur with the majority of that committee in reporting with favorable recommendation the bill amending an act granting additional quarantine powers, etc., approved February 15, 1893, and therefore submit their views, as follows:

We are not willing that the General Government should either assume duties and responsibilities not clearly imposed upon it, or invade the well-settled prerogatives and powers of States and municipalities by seeking to interfere with their efforts to protect their citizens against the dangers of epidemic diseases. With infinitely superior resources, the Federal Government is able to render valuable assistance when communities are battling against the introduction and spread of diseases, but there should be no attempt to prohibit or discourage local authorities from taking all possible precaution and adopting any additional measures for the preservation of the public health.

It may be wise to hold in mind the distinction between quarantine and commerce rather than confound all other considerations with the demands of trade. All quarantine regulations conflict with the absolute freedom of commerce and necessarily operate in restraint thereof, just as disease and death "call a halt" to life and activity, and bid all enterprises of business and profit stop and secure life and safety before seeking the further promotion of commercial interests.

Quarantine is entirely negative and preventive. It may be used by the Government to prevent entrance or movement of person or property. It may be used in the same way by States and municipalities; each authority may prohibit as long as it sees proper; neither authority may properly compel the movement and

admission of persons and property as long as the other authority objects or imposes quarantine. As long as any one or all object there can be no admission. When no authority lays quarantine, then movements are absolutely free.

One authority may be more alert than the other and scent danger where the other fancies perfect security. In such case there can be no question of the right to provide against danger. Quarantine interdicts traffic and travel in the hope of preventing contagion and epidemic. A municipality may impose it when the State in which it is situated may apprehend no danger. So a State may act when the General Government discovers no reason for its own action.

The object of quarantine is not to promote commerce, but to secure life and health by providing against the introduction and spread of contagious diseases, and the regulation of commerce ought not to be utilized as a pretext for legisla tion which might, whether intended or not, frequently result in breaking down and prohibiting the efforts of the people to protect their health and lives.

Quarantine regulations ought to be considered and adopted with a view, independently and solely, to the suppression of disease and the preservation of life, and not to stimulate money getting. There is no shadow of authority for the attempt, even in the name of commerce, to interfere in matters entirely within a State. There can be no pretense that the Constitution ever authorized that, and statutes to that effect would be utterly void as obnoxious to the Constitution, which restricts the power of Congress to "commerce with foreign nations," "among the States," and "with the Indian tribes," and not within any State. In accordance with these views, we recommend the following amendments to the bill reported by the majority of the committee:

On fifth page strike out everything inclusive from the word "enforced,” eleventh line, to the word "act," in the seventeenth line.

Strike out everything inclusive from the word "provided," in the twentieth line, same page, to the word "with," first line of page 6.

Before the word "authorized," in first line, sixth page, insert the word “the." After the word "officers," in first line of sixth page, insert "of the United States."

In the third line, sixth page, strike out the word "who."

Strike out all inclusive from line 9, sixth page, to line 11, seventh page, and insert in lieu thereof:

"Provided, That nothing in this or any other Federal enactment shall be construed to deny or interfere with the power of States and municipalities to prescribe and enforce additional safeguards of the health of their communities: Provided further, That no law of the United States nor regulation adopted by the Secretary of the Treasury shall compel the admission of persons or property into any State, if forbidden by local quarantine, except for the purpose of passing through such State; nor shall Federal law or regulations interfere in any manner with movements of persons or property between different points in the same State, nor with any State or municipal quarantine provision for protection of life and health within its own limits; but the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized, whenever so requested, to aid such State or municipal authorities in enforcing its regulations and preventing the spread of disease."

We hereto append copy of the bill reported, so altered as to show how the entire bill will read when the amendments we propose are made.

Respectfully submitted.

W. C. ADAMSON.

ROBT. W. DAVIS.

DIVISION OF SANITARY REPORTS AND STATISTICS.

This division has prepared weekly the Public Health Reports, issued by the Bureau under the quarantine act of 1893. This publication is divided into two parts, one containing sanitary information relating to the United States and the other similar information concerning foreign countries. The first part is made up of circulars. issued by the Department or the Bureau relating to quarantine subjects, information as to the existence of contagious disease in the United States, letters or reports from State and local health officers or from officers of the Service on sanitary subjects, special reports of investigation in the hygienic laboratory or elsewhere, reports from quarantine stations, both national and local; statements of the prevalence of smallpox or yellow fever in the United States, arranged in tabular form; reports of inspection of immigrants; reports of the mortality in States and cities, arranged both by the month and by the week, and a weekly table of temperature and rainfall in the United States, transmitted to this Bureau from the Weather Bureau.

The second portion of the publication consists of foreign sanitary information. The first division of it is a statement in tabular form of cases and deaths occurring throughout the world, excluding the United States, from the following diseases: Cholera, smallpox, yellow fever, and plague. These tables are arranged from reports obtained through American consuls at foreign ports, and from foreign sanitary publications and from sanitary inspectors of this Service on duty at foreign ports. This is followed by translations concerning sanitary affairs, etc., from foreign journals. Then follow reports from consuls, sanitary inspectors, and others concerning the sanitary condition of their respective districts. The report ends with statistical information concerning mortality in foreign cities, both monthly and weekly. The publication is a unique one, there being nothing of exactly the same character published elsewhere. It is distributed to sanitarians in this and other countries, and to United States consuls, and to collectors of customs on the coasts. The volume for 1897, consisting of 53 numbers, comprised 1,441 pages, and is a valuable record of sanitary

statistical information. The current volume is the thirteenth, and will be about as large a volume when completed as the last.

In order to obtain much of the information published in the Public Health Reports it is necessary to write to the various localities where, in the columns of the daily press, infectious disease is reported as existent, and this is especially true of smallpox, the occurrence of which is usually reported by the various State boards of health in accordance with resolutions agreed upon by themselves in conference. The progress of an outbreak, however, is rarely reported, unless at the special request of the Bureau. These letters are all prepared in this division, and the information obtained from the replies is edited and inserted in the Public Health Reports.

The correspondence connected with this division is consequently increasing, showing a growing interest in it on the part of those interested in sanitary matters.

REPORTS OF TRANSACTIONS OF LOCAL QUARANTINES.

It has been impossible to obtain reports of quarantine transactions from the State of Louisiana and from the port of New York, although repeated efforts have been made to secure them. This fact is mentioned because in my estimation the omission of statistical information concerning the arrival and inspection and other quarantine treatment of vessels at the ports of New York and New Orleans, two of the largest in the United States, is a matter seriously affecting the completeness of the quarantine statistics.

In the absence of any law, however, compelling local quarantines to make reports to this Bureau, it is impossible to obtain such reports except through the courtesy of the State or local officers, but it is a source of gratification to be able to say that at this date local officers, with the exceptions named, do make reports to the Bureau, and all receive this publication.

MORTALITY STATISTICS-CALENDAR YEAR 1897.

In order to obtain as accurate an estimate as possible of the mortality and morbidity where reported-throughout the United States during the calendar year 1897, I caused the same letter as in former years (see annual reports of 1896 and 1897) to be sent to all health authorities in the United States of towns having a population of 1,000 or more. Over 3,700 such letters were sent out from this office, and 1,597 replies were received which were available for use in the compilation of the statistical table.

From these replies the table of mortality statistics of 1,597 cities and towns in the United States for the twelve months ended December 31, 1897, was prepared and is here published.