Section H. 



(sanitary science and hygiene.) 



Pebsident of the Section — Dr. Allan Campbell, Adelaide. 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT. 



The Advancement of Sanitation among the People. 



If I understand the position of a president of a section of this 

 Association, his address has a latitude in the direction of popular 

 treatment not allowable in a strictly scientific paper. All the 

 more so may such latitude be permitted in a subject with such 

 popular bearings as sanitation. It is on this ground that I 

 have selected "The Advancement of Sanitation among the 

 People " as the title of the present short address. 



All who have had any experience of a really practical nature 

 with the administration of Health Acts must have found that 

 they could go but a little distance before there cropped up in 

 their path a series of difficulties calculated at every step to 

 defeat their object. These difficulties seem to come in every 

 direction. They not unfrequcntly lie in the x\cts themselves, 

 which seem to have been purposely passed in a form which 

 only gives the semblance of power to constituted authorities. 

 They lie sometimes in these very constituted authorities, who, 

 although they possess the power, from motives of popularity- 

 hunting or self-interest passively decline to put their power 

 in operation. Or the difficulties may remain with the pu]:ilic, 

 who, from ignorance and inertia, refuse to be directed, or dis- 

 turbed in their crude naturalism. 



On this sea of difQculties the enthusiastic sanitary reformer 

 looks out with some dismay, and strains his eyes to catch some 

 encouraging signs of progress. Something depends on the 

 colony from which the outlook is made. A comparative glance 

 at the colonies shows that advancement in sanitation has been 

 unequal among them ; still, all through, progress is being 

 made, and in several lines have been laid which must lead some 

 day to a much better state of things than now exists. 



