ments. The law as amended provided that the interest and sinking fund levies on account of the bond issues, shall be exempt from the limitations of the Smith one per cent law. "Evidently," says Attorney General McGhee in his opinion to the State Department of Health, "the General Assembly in creating exemption to tax limitations thought best to safeguard the issuance of said bonds by submitting them to the vote of the electors? Under the Bense Act, city councils were authorized to proceed with the sale of bonds under the existing machinery provided in the Longworth Act. The amended law provides that councils by an affirmative vote of not less than two-thirds of the members elected or appointed thereto, by ordinance, shall issue and sell bonds in such amounts and denominations, for such period of time, and at such rate of interest, not exceeding six per cent per annum, as council shall determine and in the manner provided by law. The bonds authorized to be issued for any such purpose or purposes, in any one year, shall not exceed six per cent of the tax duplicate of the city or village. Under the old law the limitation was five per cent of the total value of all property listed for taxation in the city or village. The Attorney General holds that Section 1259 of the Bense Act as amended is an independent substantive power. Not only do the limitations of the Longworth Act not apply, but the procedure of the Longworth Act is necessarily not applicable. Under the Longworth Act when the question of issuing bonds is required to be submitted to the electors, a favorable vote of twothirds of the voters at such an election is necessary. The Attorney General holds that in the absence of any specific requirement in the amended section to the Bense Act, the affirmative vote of the majority of all qualified voters voting at the election is necessary. This means that the proposition must receive the support of such number of affirmative votes as constitutes more than half of the highest total vote cast for the candidate for any office filled at election or upon any question submitted thereat. It does not mean a majority of the votes cast on the proposition, nor does it mean the majority of voters qualified to vote at the election. The amended section is silent on the question of the number of affirmative votes which shall be required on the part of the electors to issue such bonds, also as to the method for holding an election, the form of ballot, and canvassing the vote. "However," says the Attorney General, "the most satisfactory disposition of the question would seem to be to hold that where a statute providing for the submission of a question to a vote of the electors of a subdivision, fails to provide for such matters as the form of ballots and the like, the authority to make such provision must result as an implied power in some officer or tribunal. The officer or tribunal having such implied power must be either the authority which submits the question to the electors or the board of deputy state supervisors of elections." He suggests that the city council of municipalities is the proper authority to determine the form of the ballots for election to be held under the above section. The Attorney General holds that such questions may only be submitted at regular municipal elections, which means that there is opportunity to vote upon such a question only once in every two years, except in charter cities where the frequency with which there may be an opportunity to vote upon the question may be determined by the frequency with which municipal elections may be held under the charter. In answer to the query put by the State Department of Health as to what effect the amendments will have upon pending matters, the Attorney General says the act itself contains no provision as to what that effect would be, and holds that the general section which provides "that whenever a statute is repealed or amended, such repeal or amendment shall in no manner affect pending actions" would apply. Toledo Plans Sewage Disposal. Toledo's complete sewage disposal problem will be submitted to the electors in November, legislation having been adopted by the city council for an issue of $2,800,000 in bonds. The estimated cost of intercepting sewers, pumping stations and sewage disposal for eliminating stream pollution as ordered by the State Department of Health is $2,485,760. Mayor Milroy has called attention to the importance of the legislation and the necessity for its adoption as a health safeguard. Engineering Commissioner McClure is preparing literature and will conduct an educational campaign for the adoption of the proposal to issue the bonds. In outlining the procedure Engineer McClure says the proposed bond issue will cover the cost of sewage disposal on both sides of the river and in the creek district at once. The work, he says, will continue through several administrations and the voters will not be burdened with requests for bond issues in smaller amounts every two years. The sewage disposal plans include the East and West Sides. The city will advertise for bids and award contracts for the Ten-Mile creek unit before January 1. The Swan creek and river district problems also are being worked out. The sewage disposal plant alone will cost $612,210. Other items are a Ten-Mile creek intercepting sewer, West Side and Swan creek intercepting sewers, West Side branch sewer, East Side intercepting sewer, River sewer crossing Bay View Park, Bay View Park sewage pumping station and an East Side pumping station. Lancaster Has New Sanitary Code. The new sanitary code adopted by the Lancaster Board of Health when properly put into operation will mark a new era in the sanitary condition of the city and will do much to protect the health of its citizens. The new code will provide for the inspection of the milk sold in the city. Milk dealers must obtain a permit from the health department before selling milk in the city. Under the new code there will be a better observation of the foods sold in the city and this means closer observation on hotels, restaurants, bakeries and those who deal in vegetables and fruits. A menace to our excellent water supply is the out closet which is so numerous in the sewered districts of the city. The new code provides for the abandoning of these as rapidly as possible where sewer connec tions are available. The new code will have a closer enforcement of the quarantine laws on communicable diseases. The new diseases added under the code for quarantine are whooping cough, measles and chickenpox. The new code provides for a sanitary police officer, a much needed officer in the enforcement of sanitary laws of the city. This is only a partial analysis of the new sanitary code of the city. There are many other good things in it that pertain to the health of the city. It is the duty of every citizen to endeavor to try and live up to the code and aid the health department to put it into operation. Lancaster spends too little amount of money on the protection of the health of its citizens in comparison with its police and fire protection. WAR MEETING FOR HEALTH OFFICERS. A war meeting will be held at Washington, D. C., October 17-20. 1917, by the American Public Health Association. This will replace the annual meeting which was to be held at New Orleans, La., December 4-7, 1917. The papers and conferences will deal largely with the health problems created by the Great War, the food supply, communicable diseases among soldiers, war and venereal diseases, war and the health of the civil population, etc. President Wilson has said: "It is not an army we must shape and train for war; it is a nation." Go to the Washington meeting; then come back and do your bit! Washington will be crowded and those interested are urged to reserve hotel accommodations at once. It will be easy to cancel reservations; but it may be impossible to obtain rooms at the last moment. Any hotel or railroad can give a list of Washington hotels. Preliminary programs will be automatically mailed to all members of the A. P. H. A. about September 15th. Non-members may receive them free by writing to: THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION, 128 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, Mass. TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIALS - Blindness From Ophthalmia Neonatorum A Warn- ing from Great Britain - Ignorance and Carelessness Make Many Blind Obstacles Encountered in Enforcing the Law - Even the Judge Did Not Know Law Question Asked on Birth Certificates - "Your Baby's Eyes, How to Save Them" - Red Cross Seal Sale a War Time Measure - Kill the Winter Flies Now - Deaths From Burns for 1916 Automobile as an Instrument of Death - Unventi- Bad Well Plays Havoc at Golden Wedding.. One Seventh of All Deaths in Ohio Last Year Were of Infants....... Why Births and Deaths Should Be Registered - John Emerson Monger, Vol. VIII OCTOBER, 1917 No. 10 Blindness from Ophthalmia Neonatorum. EDITORIALS There are in the United States more than 10,000 persons who are totally blind because their eyes were neglected during the first few days of life. Many more are partly blind for the same reason. The annual inquiry made by the National Committee for the Prevention of Blindness of the Schools for the Blind in the United States to ascertain the proportion of pupils entering these schools whose blindness might have been prevented shows that in 34 schools reporting for the school year 1916-17, 119 new pupils or 18.4 per cent of the admissions were victims of the ignorance and carelessness which results in ophthalmia neonatorum. Out of the total attendance of 3336, there are today 796 boys and girls blind because of this preventable disease. Ohio, which maintains one of the largest state schools for the blind, reported that out of 32 admissions for 1916-17, six or 18.7 per cent were blind from ophthalmia neonatorum. For the previous year 17 out of 47 or 36 per cent of the new admissions were blind from this disease. The total attendance at the Ohio institution for 1916-17 was 243, of which 66 or 27.1 per cent were blind from "babies' sore eyes", as compared with 91 or 36.5 per cent for the preceding school year. This gratifying decrease has been general each year for the past eight or ten years and is undoubtedly due to a more general understanding as to the dangers from ophthalmia neonatorum and the increasing use of the recognized preventive measures. A Warning from * * * The British Medical Journal reports that ophthalmia neonatorum has increased to an alarming extent in the British Isles during the past year. The report of the Government Board suggests that the increase in the disease may be due to the spread of venereal diseases through laxity of military life and absence of physicians in attendance at childbirth. The report in part is as follows: "It is shocking to find that of ophthalmia neonatorum there were 7,613 cases, giving a rate of 9.69 per 1,000 births as compared with 6.806 cases in 1915. This statement indicates nearly twelve per cent increase in the incidence of that disease, and a far greater number of cases per 1,000 births than we have records of, or expect to find, in health statistics in the United States. |