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GENERAL REPORT.

The tenth annual report of the State Board of Health is herewith presented. Its object, like that of its predecessors, is more to educate the public in hygienic and sanitary matters than to chronicle the special or particular work accomplished by this department, although enough of the latter is presented to give a general idea of what the Board has done during the year.

The excellent papers which this report contains cannot fail to give much valuable information to the people of the State, upon subjects vital to their continued prosperity. There is nothing that stands so relentlessly between man and the fruition of his hopes as sickness; nothing that depresses and discourages like ill health; nothing that clouds the future. with an almost impenetrable gloom like the loss of family, and nothing so wasteful to the commonwealth as the ravages of preventable diseases. It is to lessen these and other evils that this Board has labored earnestly, and with a pleasing measure of success, for a single decade. The Board was organized in 1881. The action of the Legislature in creating it was looked upon at the time by some of our most intelligent citizens as a doubtful experiment. There were not a few, however, who believed a State Board of Health could become a branch of the public service second to none other in its ability to benefit the people of the State. It would savor of egotism to express an opinion as to how far this belief has been demonstrated. The record is to be found in part in the published reports of the Board, but to a greater extent in the sanitary advancement made during that period throughout the State. The more advanced and intelligent views held respecting the

prevention and restriction of contagious and infectious diseases; a comprehensive knowledge of the effect of unsanitary conditions upon health; the great danger arising from polluted water supplies, and insufficient drainage; a more general belief in the responsibility of environment for many of the diseases which afflict mankind, and many other once doubted facts, indicate that the people of the State are becoming educated in matters pertaining to health. The evidence of this is patent in nearly all our towns and cities. Improved systems of sewerage, increased water supplies, more complete isolation in contagious and infectious diseases, a greater number of local boards of health with a more thorough comprehension of their duties, are among the obvious evidences of an increasing knowledge of the means necessary to secure and maintain good health.

In less than a single generation the theory of sanitary science has become grounded in a mass of incontrovertible facts so apparent as to be recognized by every intelligent person and community. Twenty-two years ago the first state board of health in this country was established; to-day there are thirty-six state boards and one territorial board of health, while thousands of local boards have been organized. Such an onward march of sanitation could never have taken place, involving as it has the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars, had it not been attended, directly or indirectly, with the most remunerative results to the public, and it is only when passively or inefficiently applied that disappointment and failure follow. Isolation and disinfection positively guarantee the suppression of contagious and infectious diseases if properly applied. Failure is not, therefore, chargeable to the means, but to the imperfect application. The same is equally true in the application of sanitation and hygiene to all the conditions and surroundings of life to which they bear any relation.

While the results of sanitary work have been most marked and the progress as rapid as the most sanguine could reasonably expect, we are still a considerable distance short of what

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