134 PROCfifiDlNGg OF THE ACADEMY OF [April, 



Department assumed entire executive supervision over public 

 health matters in a. population of more than two million souls. 



In all of the countryside, as well as in small boroughs, details were 

 worked out for handling quarantine just as it is done in our large 

 cities. It is fair at this time to say that a great deal of the reduction 

 in sickness from communicable diseases in our larger centers of 

 population is due to establishing proper regulations in the unorganized 

 country villages and on farmsteads, such points prior to that time 

 often feeding infection through food supplies or l)y visits into the 

 larger centers of population. 



The third great division of the Department's organization taken 

 up was that of Sanitary Engineering. One of the Acts upon which 

 the Department is based provided for the prevention of pollution 

 of streams, and Department measures had to be perfected for 

 approving, according -to the Act, the plans for all water works 

 and sewage treatment plants. Studies had to be made looking 

 toward the requiring of many cities to build sewage purification 

 works so that municipalities down stream might not be continuously 

 poisoned by filth entering from the neighboring city above. 



The amount of work required to supervise and intelligently 

 approve the hundreds of plans brought before the Commissioner 

 in this period of time was in itself almost a full task for one well 

 trained sanitarian. For every set of plans that came before the 

 Commissioner of Health completed and safe for approval in all 

 details, two sets of plans required rejection in some particular, and 

 a goodly number during the early days of the Department required 

 rejection in toto. 



The Division of Laboratories was organized as soon as the other 

 divisions were well planned, the organization being made with a 

 threefold purpose in view: 



First, to afford doctors in the Commonwealth remote from 

 instruments of precision opportunity to study their cases in a 

 scientific way and to apply modern methods of treatment. 



Second, to properly check the operation of water filtration and 

 sewage purification plants and to coordinate the engineering studies 

 with end results. 



Third, with the purpose of undertaking such research work as 

 might be advisable. 



Division of Distribution of Biological Products. — Early in the 

 history of the Department plans were made for averting the need- 

 less sacrifice of life to the ravages of diphtheria. The Attorney 



