REVIEW OF PUBLIC HEALTH WORK IN INDIANA. 227 



1. Police power conferred upon the State and Local Commission or 

 similar bodies. 



2. Means to defray expenses. 



"Those two links must be supplied by the Legislature of the State. To 

 this end we hope the Commission, the profession and people in general will 

 work." 



In a review of the reports of the Indiana Medical Association may be 

 found many papers upon the subjects of State medicine and hygiene. In 

 1873, Dr. Sutton, of Aurora, presented a report on "Diseases of Indiana for 

 the Year 1872." He said: "At the meeting in the spring of 1870, it was sug- 

 gested that some plan should be adopted by which we might have the annual 

 report of facts, showing the health or sickness in the different counties, the 

 prevailing diseases, the season of the year in which different forms of disease 

 most frequently prevailed, etc. To procure such information, committees 

 were appointed at that time in each Congressional District, who were to 

 report to the Society at its next annual meeting. This plan, after being tried 

 two years in succession, not succeeding as well as desired, a committee was 

 appointed at the last meeting (1872) to collect facts and report to a chairman, 

 who was to condense and embody the information received, into one report, 

 to be presented at its meeting of 1873. Dr. Sutton made a report embracing 

 forty-two counties, reviewing the diseases prevalent in the different months 

 and giving the opinions of the various writers from their respective counties 

 concerning their sanitary conditions and sanitary needs." 



In the report of 1874, Dr. Washburn, of Logansport, in an article entitled 

 "Medical Legislation," speaks of the necessity of the State collecting accurate 

 vital statistics, and urges that a proper registration law be enacted. In the 

 report of 1875, Dr. Stevens read a paper entitled "State Boards of Health." 

 He said, "We hope this Society will not adjourn Avithout appointing a com- 

 mittee, whose duty it shall be to advocate this step and bring it before the 

 profession and the people." In the report of 1876, we find that the presi- 

 dent's address. Dr. Helm, of Peru, was wholly devoted to advocating the 

 passage of a health law estabhshing a State Board of Health and Registration. 

 He thoroughly presented the subject and made a plea that the Society arouse 

 and do all it coidd to further the efforts of its committee in this matter. 

 In the report of 1877, Dr. Hervey, of Indianapolis, read an exhaustive paper 

 entitled, "How to Secure Medical Legislation." He therein eloquently urged 

 the passage of a State health law. 



In the report of 1878, Dr. L. D. Waterman, the president, devoted his 

 official address to the subject of State medicine. He said in part: "In this 

 State, no enactments to protect the people from unnecessary diseases and 

 epidemics have been passed." He announced this condition to be a disgrace 

 to the State and urged the Association to stronger effort in the matter of 

 health legislation. Dr. Waterman exhaustively reviewed the economics of 

 health control, estimating the value of a human life unnecessarily lost at 



