for human consumption. In this respect we are distinctly behind the older countries of Europe. The time is surely coming when other methods of sewage disposal will be practiced, and with that time in view, no town should think now of installing expensive sewerage systems, which empty the effluent into the nearest body of water.

In 1904 the State Board of Health in Vermont adopted the following regulation: "Hereafter no city, town, village, community, public institution, or individual shall empty any sewage into any body of water, spring or stream tributary thereto, when such water is used by any city, town, village, public institution, individual, or by any water or ice company, as a source of water or ice for domestic use." But this regulation could not be applied to all the communities in the state already discharging their sewage into water courses, for its enforcement would entail enormous cost and real hardship on many towns, large and small.

The practical question which the typhoid situation in Vermont presented in 1905 was, What is the surest and quickest remedy for the present situation? The statute prescribed the remedy, direct and practical, and the Board proceeded to apply it. Thereupon the Board issued a warning notice to each of the towns then known to be using polluted water, viz. Vergennes, Burlington, Swanton, Enosburgh Falls and St. Johnsbury, that unless steps were taken to improve their supplies within a year, the Board would exercise the authority given by law and prohibit the use of the condemned water in each place.

Swanton and Enosburg Falls took measures looking to an improvement of their supplies, and the city of Burlington, somewhat tardily, owing to unfortunate local conditions, proceeded to instal a filtration plant. The towns of St. Johnsbury and Vergennes took no steps to prevent the use of the polluted water, although many citizens of the former place changed their source of supply. The State Board then placed a prohibition upon the use of these polluted supplies, and applied to the Court of Chancery in the St. Johnsbury case to enforce the order.

The village of St. Johnsbury and various individuals included in the order of the Board took the matter to the Supreme Court, and this Court has just rendered a decision, favorable in all essential points to the Board of Health.

If, as now seems likely, this decision helps the Board to stop the wholesale use in this state of grossly polluted water, by cities, villages or water companies, it will surely have a far-reaching effect on the future prevalence of typhoid fever in Vermont. With no large community perennially spreading this disease, our present low 'death rate from this disease ought to be cut in two.

The health officers of Vermont need no instruction on the relation of typhoid fever to water supplies. Former schools have heard this subject treated by some of the highest authorities in the country. If, however, an argument were lacking to show the advantages of a pure water supply from

a typhoid standpoint, the recent experiences of Burlington under a polluted and, later, under a pure supply, should furnish that argument.

The following figures are taken from the records of the health department of Burlington:

Number of cases of typhoid fever reported:

In 1906, 43 cases.

In 1907 (the public having been warned against using raw water), 23

cases.

In 1908 (by months; the filtration plant was put in operation in April of

In the sixteen months since the filtered water was turned into the mains, there have been six (6) cases of typhoid fever reported to the health officer of Burlington; and in the sixteen months directly preceding there were reported to this officer, 39 cases.

Comment on these figures is unnecessary.

Scarlet fever caused less than half as many deaths during the last two years as ten years before, tuberculosis 156 fewer, and measles 33 fewer.

These figures may not accurately measure our progress in preventing disease during the past decade, yet they are instructive. They certainly seem to show that we are really making headway against such diseases as are now known to be preventable.

From the five diseases mentioned, practical sanitation is saving to our state at least 450 lives each two years, as compared with ten years ago. This saving of life is not among the aged and decrepit; rather they come from the young and those of productive age. Each has a commercial value. I leave it to the economist to estimate what this saving of life is worth to the state.

None of us believes that the limit has been reached. Our vanishing death rates from diphtheria and typhoid fever, from tuberculosis and scarlet fever, will ere long extend to pneumonia and cancer, those scourges that now are taking their place at the head of our mortality tables.

In no line of human activity can predictions more confidently be made than in that of preventive medicine. If we may judge the future by the immediate past, by the skill and energy everywhere in evidence in searching

out disease causes, we may predict with confidence the stamping out of all that class of diseases which we now rate as infectious and preventable. This prediction is already made of that universal scourge, tuberculosis, by those qualified to speak authoritatively. We have laws enough, as I have said. If every public health law in our statutes were literally and universally obeyed, infectious diseases would soon become very rare.

Perhaps the public health laws are as well enforced as any laws, yet I wish to urge upon the health officers of the state to study these statutes carefully, and to seek by every means to make these laws respected in every community. It occasionally happens that someone will not respect any law until he is given a personal demonstration of the possibility of its enforcement. And it is equally true that the continual failure to enforce any law begets contempt of that law.

Our health laws affect everybody. They reach us all, at some time or other, and frequently at inconvenient times and unpleasantly.

There can be no surer test of good citizenship than respectful and willing obedience to these laws, at personal inconvenience and cost, for the public good.

It is sometimes pleaded that the enforcement of these laws amounts to an infringement of personal rights. In this connection permit me to quote from the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the St. Johnsbury case referred to.

In his opinion the Chief Justice says: "As to personal liberty, our Bill of Rights declares that government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, nation, or community, and not for the particular emolument or advantage of any single man, family, or set of men who are a part only of that community. Closely allied to this fundamental proposition is the further declaration that the people of the state, by their legal representatives, have the sole, inherent and exclusive right of governing and regulating the internal police of the state. . . . . And the state may invest local and state Boards for administrative purposes with authority in some proper way to safeguard the public health and the public safety.

"We come now to consider more especially what personal liberty is as secured by constitutional provision; and on this question we refer to Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. II., 25 Sup. Ct. 358, 49 L. Ed. 643, which affirms the legality of compulsory vaccination for the prevention of smallpox. There the plaintiff in error insisted that his liberty was invaded when the commonwealth subjected him to fine and imprisonment for refusing to submit to vaccination; that the compulsory vaccination law was unreasonable, arbitrary, and oppressive, and therefore hostile to the inherent right of every free man to care for his own body and health in such way as to him seemed best; and that the execution of such a law was nothing short of an assault upon his person. But the court said that the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its juris

diction does not impart an absolute right in each person to be at all times and in all circumstances wholly free from restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good; that on any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members; that society based on the principle that every man is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy; that real liberty could not exist under the operation of a principle that recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that might be done to others; that that court had more than once recognized it as a fundamental principle that persons and property are subject to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the state, of the perfect right of the Legislature to do which no question was ever raised, nor on general principles ever can be raised as far as natural persons are concerned."

Words of wisdom, these: eminently Christian words! They breathe the same spirit as those other words that come down to us through the ages, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." On such principles are the foundations of great states, great in all that makes for physical health and the highest prosperity. Such principles lie at the foundation of all community laws, not alone health laws. We have had notable examples in our day of what intelligent sanitary laws may do for a nation. Without such laws, impartially and rigidly enforced, our own country could not for a day hope to prosecute its great work on the Isthmus of Panama.

Such laws, intelligently and vigorously practiced, played a leading rôle in the victory of Japan over her powerful antagonist, Russia.

No state whose citizens selfishly think only of their individual comfort and forget the common good, can reach its highest material prosperity.

Signs are not wanting of an awakening in the industrial world to the importance of sanitation to large moneyed interests. The health of its employees is becoming of economic interest to large corporations, and the large life insurance companies are taking practical steps to safeguard the health of their policy holders. Why? Simply because they are convinced that it will pay.

Sanitation, preventive medicine, public hygiene, by whatever name you call it, is in its infancy. While we congratulate ourselves on results achieved, the possibilities which the future holds can not even be guessed. Of this we may be sure, life will become safer and longevity increased, as we make our statutory laws and our practices conform to the ever developing laws of science.

The program of this school contemplates the usual discussion of a large variety of practical sanitary subjects, but the last number on the program is by no means the least important, viz. "Legal Points in Health Work." Every subject on our program is a live one; the last session, however, devoted to the health laws, should claim the attention of every health officer. We should familiarize ourselves with these laws, and take this opportunity,

with the aid of an attorney who has had experience in their enforcement, to secure practical assistance in construing them.

We are fortunate in securing good authorities as instructors at these sessions, and all health officials and the public generally are invited to take part in the discussions. The time is fully occupied and the program crowded, hence the necessity for brevity in what we have to say.

This is really a school; we are here for a purpose, viz. to learn. It is a school supported by the state, let the state get the benefit of its sessions.

ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR PROUTY.

Mr. President, Health Officers of the State, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I suppose it is one of the duties of the State Board of Health to look after the health of the Governor; therefore, they have him here to-night to show that they have performed their duty faithfully. He is in very good health, showing another duty faithfully performed.

This is an age of conventions. Any one who has the opportunity a Governor has to know about these matters, must be convinced of that, because hardly a day passes that I am not called upon by some society or some institute to appoint delegates to attend a meeting, and these meetings are nearly all of great importance; therefore, I say, this is an age of conventions. It is an age of institutes. It is an age of study. We ought to be congratulated on having such a school as this because the subjects discussed here are, of course, the most important that come before the state and its people, and as you carry out the laws that have been formulated in wisdom and integrity, so shall the state profit thereby. There is nothing so vital as the health of the people. We should congratulate ourselves that statistics show that during the last thirty-five to forty years the average length of life has been increased fifteen years. This has been brought about by study by the doctors. It is because the doctors have come together and seriously considered these great questions that this result has been obtained, therefore we should congratulate ourselves that the state has seen fit to provide for this school where questions of such vital importance can be so wisely discussed. The state should be congratulated on having a State Board of Health that is willing to give its time, wisdom and energy for the state. We all know the members of the State Board of Health receive practically nothing for what they do. It is a labor of love which they are performing. They are men who are capable of doing great things; I can assure you, gentlemen, this is a fact. Not one of them but is able to secure a lucrative practice and they have done so; therefore, when they give up their