No 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 605 



to prosecute this contest there was put in the field a general slalT, 

 without troops and with a most begjj^arly treasury. 



In an area of 45,000 square miles, with a population of more than 

 live millions, and containing 574 incorporated cities and boroughs, 

 there were but eleven boards of health. More than 70 per cent, of 

 the population, and 90 per cent, of the area of the State had no 

 health statistics, no registration of deaths, no notification of in- 

 fectious diseases, no contagious disease hospitals, no iusx)ection of 

 foods, no legal health authorities. "The sanitary condition of por- 

 tions of the State outside of the larger cities was indeed shocking." 

 The city councils of Philadelphia, long before compelled by the Leg- 

 islature to maintain a board of health themselves, took the alarm 

 and memorialized that body that the State was quite unpr<?pared 

 to check the spread of transmissible diseases, which it claimed 

 caused one out of every five deaths occurring in the Commonwealth. 



The State Board of Health, created in response to' this and similar 

 appeals, therefore announced in an "Address to the People of Penn- 

 sylvania," adopted at its first meeting, that it would deem it its 

 first and most important duty to encourage and urge the establish- 

 ment of sanitary authorities, not only in all cities and boroughs, 

 but also in townships, so that there might be a complete system of 

 sanitar}^ administration throughout the State, and that there might 

 not remain a single nook or cranny, however secluded or remote, 

 with which the Board might not be in regular communication in 

 order both to receive information and to extend aid. All boroughs 

 had the power to establish boards of health, but it was slow and 

 discouraging work to induce them to exercise this power, and it 

 was not until 1893, eight years after the establishment of the State 

 Board, that sanitarians succeeded in having the law so amended as 

 to make it mandatory instead of merely permissory. This of course 

 at once greatly increased the number of boroughs having boards, 

 but left the townships still unprotected; and yet the farmer 

 values the lives of his wife and children as dearly as does the citi- 

 zen. Disease germs are no respecters either of persons or of locali 

 ties. The empty place at the dinner table and the vacant desk at 

 school are mute but terrible witnesses to the frequency with which 

 these subtle foes select their victims in the farm house. Not until 

 1899, fourteen years after the creation of the Board, did the Legis- 

 lature accept this fundamental statement and pass a law authorizing 

 school boards in townships to. assume the functions of health boards, 

 in so far as the restriction of communicable diseases was con- 

 cerned. This was a most unsatisfactory solution of the problem. 

 The school boards hesitate to incur expenses not provided for by 

 law as part of the educational system of the State. The poor 

 directors claim that inasmuch as the law has authorized school 



