70 PUBLIC HEALTH 



the Department of Agriculture is proving its value as an educational 

 factor to our population beyond all question. 



There seems to be no good reason why a similar organization for 

 sanitary work should not be instituted. Its beginnings are to be 

 found in the work of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, which has already demonstrated its efficiency 

 in enforcing interstate quarantine upon infected cattle, as well as in 

 other ways too numerous to mention. Another governmental effort, 

 conceived in the same scientific spirit, is to be seen in the founding 

 of various state agricultural experiment stations, which are practi- 

 cally chemical laboratories working upon problems which the 

 farmer, without scientific aid, might never be able to solve. 



Federal establishments like these, for the study of hygienic pro- 

 blems and the betterment of health in sections of the country where 

 such betterment is sorely needed, would have an immense educa- 

 tional value, besides conducting great works of sanitation on broad 

 lines where now such work is either entirely neglected, or allowed, 

 for the most part, to fall between the two stools of municipal and 

 state sanitary authorities. Such a central body would also solve the 

 vexed questions of national quarantine, which are now left to the 

 varying judgment of local health officers in our seacoast cities, at 

 times undoubtedly to the menace of the public health of the United 

 States. 



Another field of usefulness for a national board of health would 

 be the training of sanitary officers. Sanitary science is so new, and 

 the public appreciation of its benefits still so small, that the re- 

 wards for the pursuit of it as a life occupation are not sufficient to 

 induce enough good men to make it a study. The result has been, 

 thus far, that the men who do the actual work of sanitary inspection, 

 even in the service of well-organized bureaus of health in the large 

 cities, are as a class without other training than that which expe- 

 rience and, at best, a little reading on sanitation can give them. 

 They may have been plumbers or carpenters before entering public 

 service, but none of these bring any great amount of theoretical 

 knowledge to their work. A few, of course, have been educated as 

 physicians, but have turned to the sanitary field for one or another 

 reason; often, perhaps, it is to be feared, because the certain small 

 salary in the public service is more satisfactory than the doubtful 

 rewards of more or less unsuccessful medical practice. 



Some time ago, seeing the need for attracting to the pursuit of 

 sanitation men of higher grade than the majority now engaged in 

 it, I suggested to the president of one of our largest universities the 

 plan of offering courses in hygiene and sanitation as part of the 

 curriculum. He replied that the experiment had been tried, but that 

 few or no pupils presented themselves; he thought that young men 



