NEW JERSEY. (From DR. DAVID WARMAN, Trenton, N.J.) TRENTON, N.J., Feb. 28, 1876. Most, if not all, the important questions you propounded could have been answered truthfully by an emphatic negative. Our State seems to exhibit the most profound apathy and indifference in regard to the great question of "Public Hygiene and Preventive Medicine." Three years ago, a Health Commission was appointed. They made a lengthy report, and drafted a bill for the purpose of establishing a State Board of Health, similar to the one in your own State. This was pre sented to the Legislature; but was buried in committee by the influence of homoeopathists and other irregular practitioners, who wished to be recognized as "a part of the State Board of Health." Since then, no effort has been put forth to secure a board of health for the State; but we hope the day is not far distant, when we shall have such an organization in New Jersey. I herewith transmit you a copy of the Report of the Health Commission of the State of New Jersey; also, a copy of the transactions of our State Society from 1776 to 1800; to both of which I refer you for information, as they will answer most, if not all, the questions you ask. NEW YORK. (From DR. A. N. BELL, Editor of the "Sanitarian," New York, N.Y.) NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 1876. "How many journals are devoted to sanitary work in this country" is beyond my ability to tell. Vol. 3, Army Catalogue, under Periodicals, gives a full list of all of the, socalled, health journals there have been, and of those which are now, published. But few of them have been devoted to sanitary work. They are, indeed, almost without exception devoted to other purposes. Fowler & Wells's "Science of Health," New York; Woods & Holbrook's "Herald of Health, New York; the "Health Reformer," Battle Creek, Michigan, — these I receive in exchange. They occasionally contain articles of some sense; but they are devoted exclusively to hydropathy: and those three, I believe, have the largest circulation of any "health" journals in the country. Of others I sometimes receive copies; but they are decidedly unsanitary in all their works, devoted to quackery. In Canada there are two, the " Sanitary Journal," Toronto, and "Public Health Magazine," Montreal, devoted to sanitary work. The former is one year old; the latter, eight months. For the rest, I must refer you to the catalogues, for names and ages. You will find there have been several attempts to publish journals devoted to sanitarian work in this country; but, so far as I know, the "Sanitarian is the only one at present sus tained. I present, with pleasure, the following letters, giving a brief résumé of the gradual growth of sanitary enactments in this country. It was kindly prepared for me by Dr. Elisha Harris: (From DR. ELISHA HARRIS, New York, N.Y.) NEW YORK, May 1, 1876. The first great step in the sanitary work of our own times seems to me to have been taken in the faithful report made to the Massachusetts General Court by Lemuel Shattuck and his associates, in 1849-50. It remains the monument to Mr. Shattuck's large and fervent mind, and his plans of usefulness. Then came your own report, in 1863. Both of the reports chance, at this moment, to be before me, as models for a temporary outline I am preparing for use in the preliminary reconnoissance of the Survey Commissioners in our own State of New York, who are about to devise the general scheme for a survey; which we hope will be as perfect a piece of contour and geodetic mapping as has ever been made. The State of New York has been growing rich, and its people are becoming educated and enlightened; but our legislators are more or less of speculators in the games of party politics, and gain in the spoils of office, and in law making. We may not have a State Board of Health this year, though a good bill is now on its final passage. If it becomes a law, will forward you a revised copy of it. In answer to questions, Dr. Harris writes thus: 1. The State laws to promote vaccination have been absolute and mandatory; but never executed, because there is no central or other specific authority. This is in the hands of common school officers. 2. The State has expended over three millions of dollars to guard the port of New York against the yellow fever; all in providing for structures and extra expenditures at the Quarantine Station. The Legislature never refuses the money, asked for the Quarantine Commissioners, not one of whom is a physician. The State has given all power and right necessary for controlling all the affluents of the Croton for the City of New York. For four years past, the Adirondacks Commission has, by State order, surveyed and reported for the preservation of the sources of the Hudson River, which will ultimately supply half the population of the State with pure water. New York City will eventually take half its supply from the Hudson, above Poughkeepsie. 3. The law of 1867 for New York and Brooklyn has greatly reformed the system of tenement construction; but has not and cannot remodel the old tenements, except as regards ventilation and lighting. We need the powers of the Glasgow authorities to recast bad quarters. Though no single discovery has been made, the tout ensemble of acquired knowledge concerning all and each of the typh. contagia, and the factors of their propagation, is equivalent to discovery; and the deduction from such knowledge gives the elements of absolute prevention and protective skill. This is equivalent to special discovery. In regard to several of the special fever-poisons, viz., scarlatina, diphtheria, relapsing fever, and the paludal fevers, the recently acquired knowledge may be regarded as equivalent to discovery of the means of prevention. Physicians in the State of New York are cultivating such knowledge; and they accept the contributions of observers like Drs. Bowditch, Kline, John Simon, M. Crocq, on the propaga tion of tubercles, as lights on the pathway of true discovery. Thus the direct outcome of recent observations and physiological studies results in logical deductions, which can be expressed as sanitary truths in the field of Preventive Medicine. Such practical uses of accumulated facts we deem to be equal to discovery. The State of New York has encouraged the cultivation of all of the physical sciences; and has, for sixty years, regularly published and given very wide circulation to the Annual Reports of the State Medical Society. Those reports frequently embody special and elaborate records of epidemics, and reports on drainage, and the sources of malaria. Drainage laws have been put into operation, and the State is about to organize the most elaborate topographical and economical survey of its entire domain. The City of New York has, for ten (10) years, had the services of upwards of thirty (30) well-educated medical men, and a certain number of engineers, chemists, and other experts in physical knowledge, steadily devoted to the public health problems. Even amidst the adversities of political strife, the Metropolitan Sanitary Code has maintained its sway, and the sanitary service has not been interrupted. Hundreds of cellar habitations and thousands of insalubrious tenements have been vacated, and the latter have been radically reformed. Forty thousand ventilating windows and shafts were constructed by owners and lessees of tenements, in half as many habitations in the city, during the last twelve months of my service as Sanitary Superintendent; and, during the same period, a thorough sanitary survey and registry of every tenement house in the city was made. The incursions of various contagious fevers were arrested; and, from the 1st of March, 1869, to January, 1876, nearly six hundred thousand persons were gratuitously and well vaccinated by medical officers of the Board of Health; thereby not only giving security to more than one-half the people of the city, but securing great benefits to the entire country, and the commercial world. The people generally sustain the public health measures. The courts of appeal have, in every case, sustained the Sanitary Code. The merchants of the city, in 1864-65, when fevers and small-pox threatened the welfare of commerce and of human life, and even jeopardized the national cause, provided for a voluntary sanitary inspection survey and report, by a volunteer Council of Hygiene. When there was no board of health, that work, by the Citizen's Council of Hygiene, was organized and conducted by fifty (50) expert medical men; and the two editions of the volume of reports, with the charts, maps, and special labors, cost $18,000, and became the raison d'être of the Metropolitan Sanitary Code. Thus, wealth and intellect gave origin to the present sanitary system. The death-rate has fallen from 34 in the 1,000 inhabitants, occasionally to 27, 28, or 28.9, &c., per 1,000. The value of health and life is more generally appreciated, or there has been a marked increase in the security and chance or expectation of life, between fifteen and forty-five years of age. The influence and example of the Sanitary Code itself, and of the method and proceedings under the Code, have extended far over our continent, and have especially prepared the State soon to take action upon sanitary duties, throughout the Commonwealth. (From DR. ELISHA HARRIS, New York, N.Y.) NEW YORK, May 7, 1876. Legislation in regard to the public health began early in Massachusetts; principally, at first, for the prevention of smallpox. Quarantine was partially established in 1784. Acts for the prevention of the spread of small-pox were passed in 1701, 1730, 1731, 1742, 1757, 1776, 1777, 1792, 1793. In 1809 it was made compulsory, by law, that a committee be chosen in each town to superintend vaccination. The first Board of Health was established in 1799, in Boston and in Salem; a few years later, in Marblehead, Plymouth, Charlestown, Lynn, and Cambridge. Most of these boards were, however, twenty years later, merged into the common councils. The most important sanitary act passed in the United States, prior to the passage of the Massachusetts Registration Laws, was to prevent the spreading of contagious sickness, and to establish better regulations for quarantine. In 1835, the whole matter was again looked into, and Revised Statutes passed. None of the |