Sanitary authority

“ The MNF and the Government shall cooperate with respect to sanitary services and
shall extend to each other the fullest cooperation in matters concerning health,
particularly with respect to the control of communicable diseases, consistent with
relevant international law. ”

“ That for the prevention of the disease occasioned by defective ventilation, and other causes of impurity in places of work and other places where large numbers are assembled, and for the general promotion of the means necessary to prevent disease, that it would be good economy to appoint a district medical officer independent of private practice, and with the securities of special qualifications and responsibilities to initiate sanitary measures and reclaim the execution of the law. ”

“ No recipe has ever been found for bringing up a healthy baby on unclean, infected milk; for avoiding tuberculosis among people who are [217] compelled to work with careless consumptives in unclean air; or for making a five-story leap as safe as a fire escape. Perfect habits of health on the part of an individual will not protect him against enervation or infection resulting from inefficient enforcement of sanitary codes by city, county, state, and national authorities. ”

“ If the local officials are not vigilant enough, the State may step in and compel the observance of sanitary regulations.
The average citizen learns of the existence of a health regulation when he is warned that he has broken it, or perhaps is fined. ”

“ We must not only teach the individual how to guard his life against preventable disease and accident, we must educate our communities to the need of an effective public health service to enforce sanitary regulations and otherwise guard the health and lives of their members. ”

“ The United States have no uniform legislation for the organization of public hygiene to the present day. Each State organizes this service as it chooses. ... That which characterizes the sanitary organization of the States is the fact that, in a large number of States, the right is granted to the sanitary administrations to carry before the justices the infractions of the regulations on this subject. It is a similar organization to that of Great Britain, with a little less independence, and it is the logical result of the general system of administration which exists in the American Union. ”

“ None of the Vestries or District Boards gave any sign of making provision for those who were not paupers, although the duty of giving opportunity for isolation of infectious persons whose diseases made them dangerous to others, be they paupers or not, devolved upon them under the Sanitary Act of 1866 as the Sanitary Authorities concerned in the prevention of the extension of disease. ”

“ The passing of sanitary laws, and the granting to a certain department the power to enforce these laws, will not ensure good public health unless the public at large supports those laws intelligently, and it can only do this through State and municipal sanitary organizations. ”

“ Needful sanitary laws may be passed, but the essential thing, after all, is that they shall be faithfully and vigorously carried out and not remain dead letters in the statute-book. This must depend upon the degree to which the people are instructed in hygienic subjects and are alive to the care of health. ”

“ Without such protection, sanitary legislation cannot, in the words of the Royal Sanitary Commission, be ‘active and effective,’ because local officers are too dependent on their immediate employers to be thoroughly efficient. ”

“ We have said that the applications of sanitary science must be made mainly by the individual members of society. This is true of the kind of air breathed, of the food and drinks partaken, of the clothing worn, etc., etc. But where human beings are clustered together, their sanitary relations are so intimate that it becomes absolutely necessary for the general good to define and regulate some sanitary matters by law, which each member of a community cannot, as an individual, regulate for himself. ”

“ None but medical men can prosecute such investigations with success, or suggest the proper remedy. If such a corps of sanitary inspectors were daily patrolling their districts, visiting from house to house, searching out sanitary evils, advising and aiding the people in the adoption of preventive measures, no epidemics of smallpox, typhus, scarlet fever, or cholera would ever gain more than a transient foothold. The sanitary inspector would truly become an officer of health and would be everywhere welcome. ”

“ Pecuniarily, the results of properly-applied sanitary law would be immensely successful; the cent of prevention would be more than worth the dollar of cure. It is estimated that from a half to three-fourths of the inhabitants of our principal cities are sick some time during each year of ordinary salubrity. ”

“ The German system is dominated by the faculties of its great medical institutions and relies for its administration upon the paternal attitude of the Government. In England and the United States sanitary laws are placed under the control of special bureaus or boards of health, separate provisions for this purpose being made in the Federal and State systems, the latter also delegating to municipal corporations the powers necessary to make and enforce regulations for the protection of the public health within their jurisdictions. ”

“ Suppose, during the prevalence of a contagious epidemic, the authorities should content themselves with providing for those infected, and neglect to take the necessary steps to remove the cause of the disease by doing all that sanitary science indicated—they would soon be called to account for neglect of duty. ”

“ At present there is no general law in force to compel persons, who may become acquainted with the existence of an infectious disease in a dwelling-house, to give notice of the same to the Sanitary Officer....
“Surely it is more important to protect the lives of the people than to protect from loss the dealers in cattle; but until the care of public health is considered to be of more importance than the care of property, little improvement in the laws relating to health can be expected.” ”

“ Health administration cannot rise far above the hygienic standards of those who provide the means for administering sanitary law. The tax-paying public must believe in the economy, utility, and necessity of efficient health administration. ”

“ The health department of a modern city is charged with a double duty: it has to care for cases of disease, and it has to suggest and enforce laws to keep the city sanitary. The former task—the treatment of sickness—is much more widely recognized as the proper function of the medical profession ”

“ It is a well-known fact that the great majority of the cases of disease treated in our hospitals are induced by the bad sanitary condition of the homes of the poor, and to the direct violation, through ignorance, of the plainest hygienic laws; yet what direct steps are taken to correct this constantly-acting cause of sickness? The Health Department of New York City is expected to do little else than prevent epidemics of contagious and infectious diseases. The meagre appropriation prevents them from doing much more. ”

“ The principles now affirmed in our statute book are such as, if carried into full effect, would soon reduce to quite an insignificant amount our present very large proportions of preventable disease. It is the almost completely expressed intention of our law that all such states of property and all such modes of personal action or inaction as may be of danger to the public health, should be brought within scope of summary procedure and prevention. ”

“ In no branch of this wide range of inquiry is painful experiment necessary.
Our homes, our industrial occupations, our legislative enactments, should all be guided by hygienic knowledge, and its diffusion should be actively encouraged by the community. Our hospitals and dispensaries need to promote practical hygiene. Our medical schools should turn the force of their learning, ability, and great influence to the conversion of their students into a vast body of sanitary missionaries. ”

“ Every sanitary society, every agency whose aim is to work in the interest of public health, has actively aided, and is aiding, in the propaganda for a better universal understanding of the principles of sanitation and hygiene. The individual must be educated to understand the tragic need of such a law. You cannot legislate virtue into the public conscience. ”

“ By a state enactment approved March 25, 1884, provision was made for a live-stock sanitary commission, which was charged with the duty of protecting 'the health of the domestic animals of the state from all contagious or infectious diseases of a malignant character,' an was empowered to establish, maintain, and enforce such quarantine, sanitary, and other regulations as it deemed necessary. ”

“ I perceive, however, that it may be urged, that as mere civilising influences can of themselves effect so much, they might safely be left to themselves to complete, through the necessity of their demands, the whole sanitary code. ”

“ The study of social hygiene means the study of those things which concern the welfare of human beings living in societies. There can, therefore, be no study more widely important or more generally interesting. I fear, however, that by many persons social hygiene is vaguely regarded either as a mere extension of sanitary science, or else as an effort to set up an intolerable bureaucracy to oversee every action of our lives, and perhaps even to breed us as cattle are bred. ”

“ I would simply beg to repeat, with regard to so much of the matter as lies within my own professional province, that the intelligence in question is absolutely necessary for the present progress of sanitary measures within the City; that no Health-Committee can exist for a month without it; nor can any officer, having proper respect for his character, consent to be considered responsible for the health of a population, whose illnesses he learns only from their posthumous record in the death-register. ”

“ No one shall be subjected to forcible medical treatment or sanitary measures except in circumstances established by law. (5) The state shall exercise control over all medical facilities and over the production and trade in pharmaceuticals, biologically active substances and medical equipment. ”

“ There is in the city one principal sanitary officer, a duly qualified medical man elected by the Municipal Council, whose sole duty it is to watch over the sanitary welfare of the place. Under him, as sanitary officers, are all the medical men who form the poor law medical staff. ”

“ Not until we turn our attention from definition and official to things done and dangers remaining can we learn the health progress and health needs of any city or state.
The health code of one city looks very much like the health code of every other city. This is natural because those who write health codes generally copy other codes. Even small cities are given complicated sanitary legislative powers by state legislatures. ”

“ Private laundries that do not come under the inspection of the sanitary officer are absolutely forbidden. It is incumbent on all who send clothes to the public laundry from an infected house to state the fact. ”

“ Resolved, That in the interest of preventive medicine and the cause of industrial hygiene this association respectfully recommends to the Chief Executive of the nation the desirability of instituting an inquiry through the proper officers of the Government as to the sanitary conditions existing in all Government offices and workshops where a large number of persons are employed, especially with a view of recommending, if necessary, measures for the prevention of tuberculosis therein. ”

“ Probably if we demanded good sanitary conditions before we would supply medical goods, we would be interfering with the people. But if we were going to contribute medicines to a locality at home which allowed breeding spots for disease all over the locality, I am willing to wager that we would demand an improvement of the sanitation, and see that it was accomplished, even if we had to use some kind of force. ”

“ One of the members of this board of health must usually be a physician. In large towns and cities a qualified health officer, who is always a physician, is employed on part time or full time. The local boards of health and the health officers have charge of quarantine and disinfection, the inspection of food and milk, and the enforcement of sanitary regulations. They also grant permits for the maintenance of slaughter-houses and other establishments which have a direct or indirect relation to the public health. ”

“ As rural sanitary authorities are able under the Public Health Act 1875 to obtain almost all the powers of urban sanitary authorities, it is not considered advisable to make any distinction in the examination of the two classes of surveyors. ”

“ In prosecuting this inquiry the Association was guided by the experience of similar organizations in Great Britain, where sanitary science is now cultivated with the greatest zeal, and is yielding the richest fruits. As a preliminary step to the introduction of sanitary reforms, many of the populous towns of England made a more or less complete inspection of the homes of the people to determine their condition, and to enable them to arrive at correct conclusions as to the required remedial measures. ”

“ Want of knowledge along lines of modern sanitary advancement is to a very large extent due to the inertness of legislatures in enacting laws to meet the modern sanitary needs. The passing and enforcing of such laws would surely force our ignorance on this subject out of us and place us on a higher hygienic plane, such as has been established by the excellent enactments in a few of our States. ”