II. This part contains the more detailed replies of correspondents from thirty-three States and Territories; viz., Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. The States, &c., are arranged alphabetically. The letters, also, from each are placed alphabetically, according to the names of the correspondents. ALABAMA. (From DR. JERome Cochran, Mobile, Ala.) MOBILE, Jan. 20, 1876. Our State has just commenced the work of legislation in behalf of the public health. I think there is every disposition on the part of the Legislature to do all that the financial condition of the State, and the circumstances of the people, will admit. Our organization is a peculiar one, and has been established on plans, proposed by myself, and by the influence of the physicians of the State. The Medical Association of the State is the State Board of Health; and the counties' medical societies are county boards of health. You will find our whole scheme in the Report of the Board, in the Transactions of the State Association for 1876. (From DR. WILLIAM HENRY JOHNSTON, Selma, Ala.) This city is situated on a sand bed. Sanitary regulation is enforced from May till December. Water can be had here by driving down a pump from twenty-five to thirty-five feet, and pumping out the sand, and then the water comes. (From DR. T. S. SCALES, Mobile, Ala.) Our State Board of Health was established in 1875, and simply exists, and nothing more. No executive authority as yet exercised. Our City Board of Health acts as a county board of health, and exercises such authority in the county, as is delegated by the Board of County Commissioners. Our City Board of Health exercises such authority as is invested by our municipal enactments; a copy of which I will send you, if desired, with our annual report for 1875, when printed, nearly ready. пош The water, principally used here, is from a clear creek, some eight miles from the city, and is conducted through the pipes in ordinary use for that purpose. ARKANSAS. (From DR. GEORGE W. LAWRENCE, Hot Springs, Ark.) HOT SPRINGS, ARK., Jan. 1, 1876. It is to be regretted that our profession has not been able to procure legislative action in our State, necessary to give satisfactory statistical information for the public welfare. (From DR. D. A. LINTHICUM, Helena, Ark.) HELENA, ARK., Jan. 22, 1876. It gives me genuine pleasure to add my mite; although, in answering many of the questions, I am compelled to reflect discredit upon the intelligence and philanthropy of our previous legislators. My answers have been necessarily monosyllabic, by reason of so little space in the blank; therefore, so unsatisfactory to myself, that I have deemed it my duty to write you, and endeavor to give more general answers, and the reasons for our very unsanitary condition. I hope thereby to take a good deal of the odium, resulting therefrom, from off the shoulders of my profession, and place it where it very properly belongs; viz., at the feet of our law-makers. Through committees, we have asked for a State board of health, and for the passage of a law for the registration of births, deaths, and marriages. We have asked for an appropriation for a sanitary survey of the State; but without avail. We have labored hard to obtain at their hands a medical bill, regulating the practice of medicine, to prevent charlatanism, with which our State abounds; but with no satisfactory results as yet. We have asked for a law for compulsory vaccination; also, for surface and underdraining of our low lands, both with regard to health and profit. We have no State or county reports of health or deaths. Therefore, not having had the necessary statistics, the diseases of our State, in very many localities, have not received their proper names. In this, the eastern part of Arkansas, lies the richest and most alluvial portion of our State. It is admirably adapted to the growth of cotton, grain, and grasses, and for the generation of those poisonous gases, said to be so active in the development of swamp or paludal fever, during the summer and autumn months. It lies, for three hundred miles, fronting upon that great artery of commerce, the Mississippi River. Our water supply is very poor. We have to rely upon cisterns. Consequently, only the affluent have a full supply of pure water, thoroughly protected from pollution. The poorer classes of whites and colored people, which largely predominate in this portion of the State, have to depend upon stagnant water from neighboring lakes and bayous, or upon the water obtained under the surface by means of "driven wells"; i.e., long iron pipes thrust down into the earth until water can be drawn by means of a pump. Nearly all of this water is impure, and contaminated with unhealthy material. Consequently, we are peculiarly cursed with malarial fevers, and all diseases, partaking more or less of that character, both in winter and summer. Dr. R. G. Jennings, of Little Rock, the capital of this State, made a sanitary survey of that city in 1870. He prepared an able document, which was published in the Proceedings of the State Medical Society of that year. I made a sanitary report to the mayor and aldermen of our town, in the spring of 1875, upon the sanitary condition of this city, Helena, with statistics of diseases for the past year, as accurate as I could obtain them. In it I threw out several suggestions for the improvement of the public health and the organization of a sanitary board. These investigations were purely labors of love upon our part, and have, as yet, brought forth no fruit. We are a comparatively new State, and situated upon the frontier; and have been for the past ten years groaning and suffering through the ordeal of reconstruction, and have been taxed beyond measure, both in pocket and endurance. This is something in extenuation of our want of statutory enactments tending to the public weal, and our failure to bring ourselves up to that standing of excellence, that characterizes many of our sister States. But the genuine men of our profession have made up their minds to persevere in their labors in the Legislature upon these great questions of sanitary reforms, and they hope finally to succeed. This success being once gained, we shall be led to other and greater reforms, until our State will occupy that position, in a sanitary point of view in the sisterhood of States, that she is so well deserving of in agriculture. CALIFORNIA. (From DR. CHARLES B. BATES, Santa Barbara, Cal.) SANTA BARBARA, March 1, 1876. Our town is but a very small and a very new one. Owing to its favorable situation - on a slope, gently inclined to the ocean, the daily breezes from the ocean reaching it, — and, until very recently, containing a small number of inhabitants, drainage was not the necessity it is in other places. Now, however, that it is becoming a place of more importance, and a favorite resort of invalids, a thorough system of drainage is in contemplation, and will be carried out before long. During the past six years, I have been a resident of this place; and, with the exception of a few cases of typhoid fever, I have seen no diseases, that I could fairly ascribe to lack of sanitary measures. (From DR. J. H. MCKEE, Los Angelos, Cal.) LOS ANGELOS, CAL., Feb. 29, 1876. Having made this place my permanent home, I send some responses pertaining to this State, &c.; but for the State I cannot answer fully, as I have not full data at hand. I have been health officer here for over a year; but our City Council give little support to efforts for sanitary improvement. I am now out of the office. No successor has been appointed, as the Council choose to save the petty salary to the treasury during the winter months. COLORADO. (From DR. CHArles Denison, Denver, Col.) DENVER, April 24, 1876. When I received your letter of inquiry, our Legislature was just coming together. I therefore delayed answering, in order to get at something of use to write you. The Legislature established a Territorial Board of Health; giving it much to do, and but little pay. The Board consists of nine physicians, appointed by the Governor. The Board of Health of the city of Denver has important duties to perform, due to the peculiar necessities of the climate, in establishing a system of sewerage; procuring a water supply, so that it will be perfectly pure when the city has been long in existence and largely increased in size; and in promoting good ventilation, for the health of invalids sojourning in this peculiar climate. The new Board of Health is composed of the Mayor, Dr. Buckingham, and four physicians, including the city physician. We have our first important meeting this week.1 (From DR. DAVID MACK, JR., Los Pinos Indian Agency.) DR. HENRY I. BOWDITCH, Boston, Mass. I was fortunate in making the journey out here, although late in December, without drawback of any kind; having finished my journey before the great snow blockade of the railroads, and the cold, that came on just after the first of the year. Although the cold weather prevented me from enjoying the journey through the mountains to this place, I still believe that it would always seem less beautiful and attractive than I had expected of a trip in the midst of, and crossing, the Rocky Mountains. They are very rocky, bleak, bare, but not grand. There 1 In answer to 2d question (viz., whether any law of development of any disease had been discovered, attention to which in the future will tend to lessen disease), he says, "Approximatively only." "There is a great saving of years and of comfort to asthmatics and consumptives, coming from the rest of the United States to this elevated country." |