456 The Public Health Act, 1872. [October, 
Dwellings Act, 1868, and the fourth section of the 
Sanitary Act, 1866, are repealed. The working of the 
‘Alkali Act, 1863, and of the Metropolis Water Acts, 
1852 and 1871, are confided to the Local Government 
Board (which, as we have said, presides over the sanitary 
authorities) by Clause 35 of the Public Health Act. 
There are various enactments respecting the holding and 
acquisition of property by sanitary authorities, and respecting 
alterations of the areas occupied by sanitary authorities. 
These enactments, however, need not occupy our attention. 
Clause 10 is very important. It enjoins on every sanitary 
authority the appointment of a legally qualified medical 
practitioner as medical officer of health in its district. It 
is further enacted that such appointment shall be made for 
a period not exceeding five years. 
Clause 34 enacts that ‘“‘the approval of the Local Govern- 
ment Board, and not that of one of Her Majesty’s Principal 
Secretaries of State, shall be required for the appointment 
and removal of analysts under an act of the session, holden 
in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth years of the reign of 
Her Majesty, intituled ‘An Act for preventing the Adultera- 
tion of Articles of Food or Drink.’ ” 
The former of these enactments would seem to place the 
officer of health too much under local influence. It is most 
desirable, however, that this should not be so. If the 
medical officer of health or the chemist does his duty 
efficiently, he will often incur the opposition of wealthy 
persons who are local sanitary authorities. He ought by 
all means to be independent of them. 
Intimately connected with the independence of these 
officers is the amount of salary which they are to receive. 
The duties of the medical officer of health are hardly com- 
patible with his continuing to practise; and his salary 
ought, therefore, to compensate him for the abandonment 
of practice. It would, indeed, not be unwise, if the aban- 
donment of active medical practice were made a condition 
of acceptance of office as a health officer under the Public 
Health Act. 
It appears that nothing of this sort is in contemplation, 
but that the health officer is to be underpaid, and left to eke 
out his income as best he may. Under these circumstances, 
something like the following state of affairs may be expected 
to arise. A few high-minded men, who happen to be se- 
lected as health officers, will prefer what they deem to be 
the public interest, and sacrifice their own private advan- 
tage to it. These will suffer a species of martyrdom. 
