half done when they had met and vanquished the grim destroyer, by patient, pains-taking, personal investigation, assured themselves of the causa teterrima, the lurking poison which had worked this strange infection in the Prince's blood, and you will begin to appreciate what a powerful instrument for good this Prince has been. Sanitarians might have gone on preaching, and writing, and toiling, and striving, aye, and laying down their own lives (for noble Anstie's death stands not alone as that of a martyr to sanitary science)—all this they might have done for half a century without producing as profound an impression, without inducing as general a belief in the deadly properties of sewer gas and polluted water, as resulted from the illness of that one man. Now all England believes that typhoid fever at least may be produced by drinking water contaminated by sewage or sewage gas. Nor has the lesson been lost upon our own country. Every where physicians are more on the alert to protect the sound as well as to heal the sick. Everywhere earnest, intelligent, and educated investigators are applying themselves to improve the sanitary conditions of our homes, and eradicate the hidden roots of pestilence and death.

And an impulse of this kind, originating in an "experimentum in corpore" nobili, carried out in all its details to its legitimate conclusions, was greatly needed: for State Medicine, like many another tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, is a plant of recent growth. Sanitary legislation in England goes no further back than the Public Health Act of 1848, for although it is true that local authorities had made efforts, here and there, to improve the health conditions of their communities, and had even obtained parliamentary enactments to enable them to suppress particular nuisances, still no action had been taken looking toward a general sanitary supervision of the United Kingdom, or indicating that the government appreciated in the least degree the responsibility which rested upon it as the guardian of the life and health of its subjects.' As is the case with all legislation on this subject in free countries, the first law erred greatly on the side of laxity and timidity. It was permissive and suggestive rather than mandatory. The dread of trespassing on the rights of individuals led the legislators to hesitate to confer on the boards which they created, and the officers whom they commissioned, the powers necessary to enforce the reform

The "Factory Health and Morals Act," 42 George III., passed in 1802, might be cited as an exception to this statement, but it was, although of general application, really local in its practical bearings, and designed to meet the crying evils existing in one or two great manufacturing towns.

measures which they urged and the necessity for which they at length became fully convinced of. This led to more positive legislation seven years later, under the title of the "Nuisances Removal Act," under the auspices of which, the health officers were enabled. to sweep away many obnoxious establishments and remedy many abuses. Three years after this, the passage of the "Local Government Act," conferring increased powers on the authorities of towns and shires for the suppression of noxious industries, and the improvement of drainage, sewage, and domestic architecture, gave a new impulse to sanitary reform, bringing it more directly home to the people. An experience of the benefits to be derived from a systematic following up of the regulations suggested by the general health authorities, of careful study and investigation of the laws governing the distribution of disease in large communities and over large tracts of country, prepared the public mind for the passage in 1866 of the "Sanitary Act," by means of which a much more thorough organization of sanitary administration was effected, and the central authorities were brought into more direct relation with local bodies and individual officials. Under this act much good work was done, many important problems either solved or greatly elucidated, and as a substantial result, the annual death-rate very decidedly diminished in some parts of the kingdom-in certain large cities to a wonderful extent. Time, however, revealed defects in its practical working so serious, that further legislation was urged by those most thoroughly acquainted with the subject, and this took shape in the "Public Health Act of 1872."

Each of these separate enactments is still in force, save where it has been reinforced or superseded by the provisions of a subsequent act. It is of course greatly to be desired that they should all be collected and sifted, and, together with various minor and local laws which have accumulated under them and in pursuance of their requirements, put into a compact and solid shape, which will make them both more manageable and effective at home, and especially more useful as guides for those who are prosecuting similar labors at an earlier stage in other countries.

It will be seen then that this great body of wise and discriminating laws on this important subject, with all the laborious and pains-taking observation and investigation, all the tedious and difficult statistical calculation, all the thankless and hard-fought battles with ignorance, prejudice, greed and self-interest, and finally all the notable victories gained and immense benefits conferred-all this has been the work of a single generation, and that but just passing off the stage of life. There is certainly a world of encouragement in this fact, for all those

who have felt disheartened at the slow progress which sanitary ideas are making in the minds of our people and government.

If we turn from Old England to New England (matris pulchræ filia pulchrior) we shall find, in the history of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, a source of even greater consolation. Its brief existence of seven years has been an uninterrupted succession of triumphs in favor of the health, happiness, and prolonged life of the inhabitants of that State. To such an extent is this true, that a learned jurist and careful statistician, a member of the legislature of that State, has pronounced the opinion, based upon careful calculations, that in single villages the saving in money-not in life, not in health, not in happiness, or any such mere sentimental advantages, but in actual cash-in consequence of the existence and action of this board, amounted to more in a single year than all the expenditures of the board for the entire State. We may not unprofitably take a hurried glance at their work, especially as the circumstances surrounding them, forms of State and local government, and characteristics of population, have many points in common with our own, making the problems which they have successfully solved much the same in form as well as in fact that our sanitary authorities will find themselves compelled to grapple with.

The act establishing a State Board of Health in Massachusetts was passed June 21, 1869, and went into effect immediately. All of the liberal professions, with commerce, science, and literature, have been represented in its membership. There has been nothing onesided, partisan, or bigoted, either in its constitution or its action. It began its work by sending out a circular explanatory of the then existing condition of the health laws of the State, what they authorized, what they prevented, and what amount of actual power they conferred on health officers. And now mark the wisdom which characterized the distribution of this circular. It was sent not only to mayors of cities, not only to members of the legislature, not only to physicians, but to every selectman of every town, and every clergyman throughout the commonwealth. In this way public enlightenment at once commenced, and a public sentiment was created which sustained and even stimulated the reformatory zeal of the local authorities. The Declaration of Independence, which may almost be considered as a part of the constitutional law of the United States, guarantees to every individual certain inalienable rights-life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Board rightly argued that among these was included the inherent right of every citizen "to the enjoyment of pure and uncontaminated air, and water, and soil," and that it is the duty of the State to see that

no one should be allowed to trespass on this right, whether from negligence, from greed of gain, or even from ignorance. The abridgment of the rights or license of the individual for the sake of protecting the rights of the community is the very foundation stone of civilized life. Civil organization cannot exist without it. The people recognize this fact in reference to certain agencies which are dangerous to life and health, but strangely ignore it in reference to other agencies which are infinitely more destructive. Thus we prohibit the merchant from exercising his right of barter and sale and storage in the matter of explosives. He is not allowed to keep any considerable quantity of gunpowder or nitro-glycerine within certain limits, or within a certain distance from an inhabited house. This is right and proper. But if a powder magazine had exploded in every street of Philadelphia on the first day of January, 1872, this calamity, frightful as it would have been, would not have caused as many deaths, would not have produced as much suffering, would not have inflicted as great pecuniary loss, as did the great epidemic of variola which was then raging. Thousands of lives, tens of thousands of maimed, disfigured, or invalided persons, millions of money; such was the cost of this explosion. A single pustule of smallpox virus, contains more powerful elements of destruction than a fifty pound can of nitro-glycerine; yet the one a man may retain in his house without the slightest remonstrance from the law, while the whole neighborhood would be up in arms against him for keeping the other, and the authorities would at once compel its removal.

A few years since, a flood of fire poured through the streets of a section of the city of Philadelphia. Men were headed off by rivers of liquid flame, and perished in frightful agony in full sight of their fellows, powerless to rescue them-home after home melted and crisped and tottered to ruin before the blazing torrent spent itself. Public sentiment was greatly outraged, as well it might be, that so dangerous an industry as the refining and storing of petroleum should have been permitted in the heart of a populous city, and legislation was quickly invoked to banish it to the rural districts. But the citizens of Philadelphia are daily pouring down their throats a fluid which, in the course of a single month, burns up in the horrid torture of fever more victims from among them than the Southwark fire destroyed, and yet men go on pursuing industries which pollute the purity of the city's water-supply, and the law is powerless to remove those industries. Why is public opinion so thoroughly aroused on the one question, so completely dormant on the other? Simply because in the one case it is instructed,

in the other it is ignorant. It can trace the connection between a shattered corpse and an exploded powder keg; it is beginning dimly to do so between a bloated corpse and an empty whiskey bottle; but it utterly fails to do so between an emaciated fever smitten corpse and a glass of cold water. Hence the absolute necessity, if we would have efficient administration of sanitary laws, for the instruction of the people in the simplest of the principles of hygiene. We must create a sound and sensitive public sentiment in favor of the preservation and protection of the public health. And, at this foundation-stone the Massachusetts Board began its labors.

But the Board was itself in need of instruction as to the sanitary conditions of the various centres of population throughout its jurisdiction. This it sought by issuing a circular to the selectmen or health officers of every town, requesting that some trustworthy physician should be recommended for appointment by the Board as its medical correspondent in that town. From the returns of these correspondents the Board was enabled at once to ascertain the existence, character and proportions of any epidemic that might occur. Preliminary measures having thus been satisfactorily taken, the Board felt itself to be sufficiently well understood and supported by the public to enable it to attack specific evils.

It first measured its strength with the fifty slaughter houses in the Brighton suburb of Boston, which, with their adjuncts, boneboiling, fat-trying, refuse-rendering, etc., contaminated the air for miles around with foul odors and pernicious vapors. The butchers of course made a strong fight, but persistence, wise management, and education carried the day; so that at the end of six years the Board was able to congratulate the citizens that this task was ended, and 66 a whole town rendered an agreeable and salubrious place of residence; while, at the same time, it had within its limits, though somewhat remote from its residences, an admirably conducted abattoir, which need never be a source of offence, and which was capable of supplying with meat all the inhabitants of the metropolitan district." And the best of it is that none are more pleased with the new arrangement than the butchers themselves. The battle having thus been won by the State Board, the duty of maintaining the conquered rights was intructed to the local authorities, and the care of the abattoir transferred by legislative enactment to the City Board of Health.

Similar action was successfully taken in regard to nuisances of this kind in other suburbs and towns, and "such excellent results followed the frequent visits of inspection to the large slaughtering