320 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and drugs are exposed, health resorts, prisons, hospitals, and pub- 

 lic buildings are inspected, the poor are provided with sanitary 

 homes in short, the people are watched over and defended from 

 the cradle to the grave. The steady lengthening of human life 

 shows that their intelligent efforts are not wasted. The annual 

 reports are an incomparable means of mutual education, for no 

 new method of investigation or illustration appears in one that is 

 not availed of by the others. The mere titles of the different 

 topics to which study has been directed would fill several pages 

 of this magazine. 



The last query was, " By what methods does it promote sanitary 

 and hygienic reforms ?" The comprehensive reply deduced from 

 the thirty-seven letters is " the education of the people " through 

 reports, circulars, pamphlets, and leaflets, accompanied by most 

 ingenious and instructive maps, charts, and graphic diagrams. 

 While one of the most potent means of convincing and moving 

 men is the human voice, with a clear brain, an enthusiastic soul, 

 and a worthy cause behind it, the most lasting and universal is a 

 judicious diffusion of printer's ink. Most of the boards keep on 

 hand, circulars, giving plain directions how to care for and limit 

 the spread of contagious diseases a work made easier since bac- 

 teriology became the definite science that it now is. In one sani- 

 tary convention complaint was made that these tracts in large 

 numbers remained piled up in the offices of the board. But there 

 comes a moment when they achieve their destiny. Let a case of 

 scarlatina break out, as soon as the telegraph can order, and the 

 mail bring these documents, people are conning them for a way 

 of escape, and that locality will never again be as densely ignorant 

 as it was. The State of Pennsylvania sends out twenty-three 

 different ones, and some of them printed in many tongues, for the 

 benefit of her polyglot people ; and there are few of the States that 

 have not established similar fountains to send forth a fertilizing 

 irrigation of knowledge. In the States of Michigan and Pennsyl- 

 vania conventions held in localities that need them have been 

 found of the greatest value. The first holds four a year, and al- 

 ready forty-eight separate localities have experienced this quick- 

 ening visitation. In Ohio the State Board holds joint conventions 

 now with the school teachers, and again with the " funeral direct- 

 ors." The Maine Board prints a monthly journal, and sends it 

 to school teachers, clergymen, and heads of local boards. Mary- 

 land tries to send tracts to every family. In the larger and more 

 sparsely settled western States the central board gets into very 

 close and vital relations witli local boards, and as a consequence 

 two States, Tennessee and Indiana, report, " We no longer have epi- 

 demics of di})htheria, siuce we have learned to limit and counter- 

 act it." In Minnesota sixteen hundred and thirty local boards 



