No. 6. DEPAUTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 441 



and administrative power to make sanitary supervision an effective reality. 

 The water supply of a considerable portion of a great city is abominally pol- 

 luted, but no suflicient authority is found to remedy it; there are numerou.s 

 and deplorable nuisances, but no efficient inspectors; there are many factories 

 and work-shops, but no laws to secure their hygienic condition or the physical 

 well-being of those employed in them; there is evidence unmistakable of the 

 sale of unwholesome and adulterated food, but it is nobody's business to med- 

 dle with it and protect the public." 



Now let us take up these serious and absolutely irrefutable 

 charges seriathn and see what has been accomplished towards the 

 removing the stigma. 



First. The State Board of Health now supplies the alleged want of 

 a central sanitary authority. 



•Second. We have a law on our statute books forbidding the 

 abominable pollution of the water supply of the great city referred 

 to, aod under this law many sources of such pollution have been 

 entirely cut off. 



Third. The State Board of Health now has an inspector in every 

 county and deputy inspectors in many townships, through whose 

 agency hundreds of nuisances are abated every year. 



Fourth. We have a State Factory Inspector, with several depu- 

 ties under him, and stringent laws for protecting the health of em- 

 ployees of both sexes ai\d of all ages. 



Fifth. We have inspectors of anthracite coal mines and inspec- 

 tors of bituminous coal mines, with boards of examiners for each, and 

 carefully drawn laws for the protection of the miners. 



Sixth. We have a Dairy and Food Commissioner, with authority 

 to prevent the sale of adulterated food and diseased meat. 



Seventh. We have a State Veterinarian and State Live Stock San- 

 itary Board to check the spread of disease among food producing 

 animals, and stringent laws have been enacted to prevent the intro- 

 ductioo of diseased animals from outside the limits of the State. 

 Thus so far as our Commonwealth is concerned every one of these 

 criticisms have been recognized as just and met in a spirit of practi- 

 cal reform. It is safe to assert that no previous period of fifteen 

 years in our history has seen such remarkable and substantial ad- 

 vances in measures for the protection of the life and health and in- 

 crease of the comfort of our people in country, village and city. 



But this has been a digression w^hich will, I trust, be pardoned. 

 We were wrestling with the question of the duties of a sanitarian 

 to a Department which has already a number of trained sanitarians 

 in its various bureaus, who are doing excellent work. Mav we not 

 conceive these duties to be twofold: 



First. The presentation of problems relating to the hygiene of 

 the homes and occupation of those engaged in agricultural pursuits, 

 with an attempt at their solution. 



