PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 1017 
SEcTION I. 
SANITARY SCIENCE AND HYGIENE. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
By the Hon. Attan Camrsett, M.L.C., L.R.C.P., L.F.P.S. 
(Delivered Saturday, 8 January, 1898.) 
ASPECTS OF PUBLIC HEALTH LEGISLATION IN 
AUSTRALIA. 
I apprectate the honour extended to me by the Council of the 
Association, and deem myself fortunate in having an opportunity 
of addressing the members of the Association and the public in 
this important section of its work. Let me, however, at once say 
that I am no specialist in hygiene or sanitation. My interest in 
them comes to me as side questions, more in the part I play as a 
representative of the people in Parliament than as a medical man, 
or as a sanitary expert. This will account to some extent for the 
turn the discussion will be found-to take in my address. I am 
conscious of a total lack of experience in any of the duties per- 
taining to an officer of health, and were a President’s address 
limited to a technical review of the important questions with 
which Section I deals, I should feel bound to give place to someone 
with a larger experience, and more opportunity of concentrated 
study than has fallen to my lot. 
The discursive character, I apprehend, of a Presidential Address, 
renders it capable of popular treatment. It is not supposed to 
necessarily limit itself to matters exclusively within the province 
of the specialist, or to be addressed to experts only. <A fair 
measure of license is given to range over the wide field of topics 
which the section embraces. Under these circumstances facts 
and theories will be referred to familiar to professional men. 
When, however, it is remembered that in this Section, more 
especially the questions we deal with, have large public aspects 
