EDITOR'S TABLE.

SANITARIAN, JANUARY, 1902.

All correspondence and exchanges, and all publications for review, should be addressed to the editor, Dr. A. N. Bell, 337 Clinton St., Brooklyn, N. Y.

THE NEW BOARD OF HEALTH.

The most important local event with reference to the public health at the beginning of the year is the reorganization of the Department of Health. Mayor Low has signalized his administration at the outset by the excellence of his appointments to the chief offices of the City Government generally, but in none more than to the Department of Health and other departments in relation with it.

In announcing these appointments, Mayor Low called attention to the important changes made in the organization of the Health Department by the new charter. Hitherto it has consisted of the president and two medical commissioners and Police Commissioner. The new charter reduces this board of three members to a single Commissioner, and makes the Board of Health to consist of this Commissioner, as president, of the Health Officer of the Port, and of the Police Commissioner. The Health Commissioner is ERNST J. LEDERLE, Ph.D., who has been chief chemist to the department for several years. He was educated at the New York University and at Columbia University, graduating from the School of Mines in the course of chemistry in 1886.

In announcing this appointment, the Mayor added that it had been to him "a matter of no little study to decide whether, under the circumstances, the Health Commissioner had better be a layman or a physician. After careful reflection I determined that even under these conditions it is best that the Health Commissioner should be a layman. On the other hand, the disappearance of the medical members from the board as before constituted makes it highly important, as I conceive, that there shall be a certain reorganization of the department on its medical side.

"I have therefore arranged with Mr. Lederle that Dr. HERMAN M. BIGGS, now at the head of the bacteriological laboratories of the Health Department, shall be placed in practical charge of all the medical side of the department, with the title of Medical Officer.

The exact duties of Dr. Biggs as Medical Officer of the Department remain, of course, to be determined in the light of the law and of the judgment of the Board of Health as it will be constituted after January 1. In the meanwhile it is sufficient to point out that in the presence of a very radical change in the organization of the Health Department I have endeavored to secure the advantages of the new system without losing the benefits of the old."

JOHN N. PARTRIDGE, Police Commissioner, is favorably known for his service in the same capacity under Mr. Low, nearly twenty years ago, when he was Mayor of Brooklyn. Of the other ex-officio member, Dr. ALVAH H. DOTY, the efficient Health Officer of the Port, there is no room for remark-his thorough competency and acceptability admit of no question.

Closely allied to the Health Department is the Street Cleaning Department. To the head of this the appointee is Dr. JOHN MCGAW WOODBURY. In making this selection, Mr. Low says: "I have borne in mind the fact that the work of the Street Cleaning Department consists of two very distinct parts. First of all, it is necessary that the streets should be kept clean, and that the garbage and refuse should be promptly and efficiently removed. For this part of the work executive ability of a high order is essential. "But, in addition to all this, as to the success or failure of which the public can readily form its own judgment, there are important scientific questions to be dealt with, relating to the best disposition of the city's refuse. These matters lie outside of the public sight, and I do not know to what extent the immediate future may be embarrassed by existing contracts. I believe, however, that a great service can be rendered to the city along these lines, and that, ultimately, an income ought to be received from much of this work which is now a subject of expense.

"Dr. Woodbury's equipment for dealing with both sides of this problem may be briefly stated. During the war with Spain he was assigned as Division Surgeon, with the rank of major, to the staff of Major-General James H. Wilson, who speaks of his capacity and efficiency in the highest terms. At Ponce, Dr. Woodbury was placed in charge of the unloading of the transport of his division at 6 A. M., and completed the same by 2 A. M. of the following day. In no other case was the work performed in less than three days. Later, when wagon trains were to be pushed to the front, the train in Dr. Woodbury's charge got through on the same day, while of the other trains which started on the same afternoon, the next arrived two days later.

"Dr. Woodbury served for a time as Sanitary Inspector of the Island of Porto Rico, and during this period organized the first Board of Health of Ponce, superintending the cleansing of that

town.

"After the war he was sent abroad by the United States Government to inspect, study and report upon the sanitary conditions of the German Army in active field operations. During this visit he inspected and studied the system of drainage, disposition of sewage, garbage, and general refuse, in Berlin, Frankfort, and Breslau, and also of the city of Paris. Dr. Woodbury is, therefore, singularly well informed as to the side of the problem which demands scientific knowledge."

Dr. Woodbury is a graduate of Princeton University and of the Bellevue Medical School. At the time of his appointment he was an instructor in the Cornell University Medical School. He has given up his practice and proposes to give his entire attention to the work of the department.

J. HAMPTON DOUGHERTY, Water Commissioner, is a lawyer of distinction in this city. As president of the Brooklyn League, Mr. Dougherty interested himself in the Long Island Water Supply scandal, and later in the Milburn Conduit, Milburn Reservoir, and Forest Park Reservoir matters. Last Winter Mr. Dougherty headed a delegation which urged at Albany the passage of a bill providing for a large storage reservoir at Forest Park. He has made a study of the problem of securing an adequate water supply for the greater city. At the time of the Ramapo agitation he was made the head of a joint committee of the Brooklyn League and the Manufacturers' Association of Brooklyn, named to investigate the subject.

Altogether the Department of Health and its congeners are better equipped with executive competency than they have ever been heretofore. It is quite safe to say of them they have the unqualified confidence of the public, insomuch that there need be no fear of stint in the exercise of their functions.

VACCINATION, ANTITOXIN AND TETANUS

continue to excite lively discussion in the newspapers and in some of our medical contemporaries. Official reports on the St. Louis and Camden misadventures are summed up on other pages. It is to be hoped at least that the well-ascertained results of carelessness of one kind or another, as reported, will lead to closer obser

vation and care in the future, alike with reference to the collection of vaccine lymph, the preparation of antitoxin, the practice of vaccination and its benefits, even beyond its protective power against small-pox. Almost forty years ago, in an essay on vaccination (Medical Society of the State of New York, 1864) we had occasion to refer to statistics gathered by Drs. Farr and Greenhow, and McCulloch's statistical account of the British Empire, showing that the death rate from scrofulous diseases was five times greater before the introduction of vaccination than subsequently; and that measles and scarlatina progressively had subsided since 1771 (at first under the influence of inoculation) and subsequently of vaccination. Yet the subject is now brought up by one of our medical contemporaries as one of recent observation. Moreover, it is worthy of remark in this connection that, according to recent records, the danger of communicating other diseases with vaccinia is evidently greater with the use of bovine vaccinia than it is with humanized lymph. But as to its danger in either case, compared with the danger of small-pox where vaccination is neglected, it is mil.

COSMOPOLITAN HEALTH STUDIES, by Dr. F. J. Oswald, will be resumed in our February number. They are of wide scope; will comprehend the conditions of health in relation to natural conditions, civic administration, government, municipal and rural, habit, food, etc., of different nations and communities.

CONSUMPTIVES BARRED.

The Board of Health of Liberty, Sullivan County, have enacted an ordinance providing that no building situate within the limits of the village shall be used, occupied, or maintained as a hospital, pest house, or sanitarium for the reception of public or private patients afflicted with consumption. A first violation of the offense is punishable by a fine of $50, and for a subsequent violation there is to be a penalty in the discretion of the board, not to exceed $100.

This means that Liberty, which was rapidly becoming famous as a Mecca for consumptives from New York, Brooklyn and Newark, will not be allowed to receive them any more. Hotels for their reception, costing thousands of dollars, have been built, and in Winter they used to flock there in great numbers to take the "open air sunbath treatment." Every hotel in Liberty, except one,

catered to their patronage. Steve Brodie spent several months there before his trip West, where he died.

The Loomis Sanitarium, located beyond the village limits, will not be directly affected, except that, as the ordinance states that no patients, "public or private," will be entertained within the limits, the patients will not be allowed to stop at any of the hotels for temporary rest or refreshment.

In the summer Liberty does a big business in catering to board

ers, and it is expected that this MEDICA

tives are barred.

BOSTOS will increase when the consump

PTOMAIN FARN 102N903OYSTERS.

Rochester, N. Y., Nov. 21.-Miss Clar Schmat, daughter of Fred Schmat, merchant in Attica en informal party last ave an night. About thirty of her friends were invited. Among the refreshments served were tin cans of oysters, which had been opened and allowed to stand for two days. Before midnight all of the guests were taken violently ill with ptomaine poisoning. Physicians worked all night, trying every effort known to counteract the poison, but Miss Schmat died early this morning, and Frank Harrison died two hours later.

CAR SANITATION.

At the annual meeting of the New York State Association of Railway Surgeons, held at the New York Academy of Medicine, November 14, papers were read by Dr. G. P. Conn, of Concord, New Hampshire division surgeon of the Boston & Maine Railroad, on car sanitation; by Dr. J. N. Hurty, secretary of the State Board of Health of Indiana, on the transportation of passengers ill with contagious diseases; by Dr. W. J. Rosenau, of Washington, D. C., on the need of disinfection; by Dr. William H. Park, of the Board of Health of this city, on methods of disinfecting cars, and by L. L. Gilbert, assistant counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad at Pittsburg, on medico-legal features of railroad sanitation.

"I believe that consumptives should be prohibited from traveling in railroad cars," said Dr. Hurty. "When they travel in railroad cars they spread contagion everywhere. I have learned through my career that when consumptives travel for a change of climate they invariably return home in the baggage car. If they are allowed to travel they should have separate compartments. Typhoid fever convalescents and all other persons suffering from