

ILLINOIS. 



379 



when the law regulating the practice of medi- 

 cine went into force, was 7,400, of whom 3,600 

 were graduates and licentiates, and 3,800 non- 

 graduates. The number of graduates and licen- 

 tiates practicing in the State at the close of 

 1880 was 4,950, the number of non-graduates 

 1,100, making the total number practicing 1,- 

 350 less than when the law went into force. 

 The number of certificates issued in 1880 was 

 610. Fraudulent medical colleges have been 

 suppressed by the board, and a higher standard 

 introduced in some of the legitimate schools. 

 The diploma of no college is sufficient to secure 

 a certificate unless it requires a college or high- 

 school education in literature and science be- 

 fore entrance, and unless it obliges candidates 

 for the doctoral degree to attend two courses of 

 lectures on medicine and all the allied branches 

 given in different years, together with clinical 

 and hospital instruction and practice in the 

 dissecting-room. Subjects to which the board 

 is expected to extend its attention are the pre- 

 vention of contagious diseases of men and ani- 

 mals, the study of the water-supply of cities, 

 and general sanitation ; also the collection of 

 vital statistics. Quarantine regulations were 

 enforced by the board to prevent the introduc- 

 tion of the yellow fever into Cairo. 



Fish-Commissioner S. P. Bartlett, in his re- 

 port, states that 251 bushels of native fry, esti- 

 mated at 5,000,000 individuals, were taken from 

 drying-up streams and ponds, where they would 

 have perished. Bass and wall-eyed pike were 

 sorted out and used to stock new waters, and 

 the rest were placed in deep water. 



A movemsnt has been inaugurated which 

 looks to the enlargement of the Illinois and 

 Michigan Canal by the General Government to 

 the dimensions of a ship-canal, so as to establish 

 steamboat communication between the lakes 

 and the Mississippi River. A convention for 

 the furtherance of this scheme was held at 

 Ottawa, March 18th. The importance and ad- 

 vantages of the improvement were described 

 by Governor Cullom and others, and resolu- 

 tions were addressed to Congress urging its 

 speedy consideration. The enlargement of the 

 canal has already been commenced by the con- 

 struction of the Henry Lock, which was com- 

 pleted in 1872 at a cost of $400,000, and the 

 one at Copperas Creek, which was finished in 

 1877, at a cost of $410,000. The two locks give 

 ninety miles of water seven feet deep, while 

 the depth before was not over two feet in 

 many places. These locks are 350 by 75 feet 

 each, and will accommodate boats 300 feet long, 

 and of 2,000 tons burden. The cost of com- 

 pleting the work on the present plan, so as to 

 furnish 226 miles of navigation to steamboats 

 drawing six feet of water, is estimated at $1,- 

 350,000. For the two locks already built Con- 

 gress appropriated $80,000. The establishment 

 of ship navigation between Chicago and the 

 Mississippi is desired chiefly as a check upon 

 the railroad companies, affording an alternative 

 route for the exports of the upper Mississippi 



Valley and the lake-region, and of all the grain 

 of the West, which, as well as provisions, flow 

 to Chicago, the central market for these prod- 

 ucts. The other benefit which would come 

 from the enlargement, would be the improve- 

 ment in the sanitary condition of Chicago, af- 

 fording a sufficient outlet for its sewage. It is 

 thought that such a passage between the lakes 

 and the Mississippi would partly supply the 

 place of the proposed reservoirs for regulating 

 the navigation of the Mississippi, and that the 

 water which could be drawn from Lake Michi- 

 gan through the canal would be sufficient in 

 quantity to improve the navigation of the great 

 river in the dry season. Another plan which 

 has been broached is to make a great cutting 

 as much as one thousand feet wide and twenty 

 feet deep, which should more than answer the 

 purpose of the reservoirs, carrying enough of 

 the overflow of Lake Michigan into the Missis- 

 sippi to add four feet to its average depth. 



In the Governor's message the situation of 

 the canal and the project for its completion by 

 the Government are described as follows : 



Tho demand for the enlargement of the canal and 

 the completion of the Illinois River improvement grows 

 more urgent every year, and it is a matter which by 

 no means interests Illinois alone, but is of equal im- 

 portance to all the States which border on the Missis- 

 sippi Kivcr, and to all those which depend upon the 

 great Valley for food-supplies. While this water-way 

 happens to be wholly within the territory of Illinois, 

 its improvement is not a question of local or State in- 

 terest. 



The State has reimbursed the city of Chicago for its 

 advances in deepening the canal, and it is now the 

 property of the State without incumbrance. The Con- 

 stitution contains the following provision : " The Illi- 

 nois and Michigan Canal shall never be sold or leased 

 until the specific provision for the sale or lease thereof 

 shall first have been submitted to a vote of the people 

 of the State at a general election, and have been ap- 

 proved by a majority of all the votes polled at such 

 election." I earnestly recommend that you provide 

 for the submission to the people of the State of a prop- 

 osition which will allow the canal to be turned over 

 to the United States, on proper conditions and limita- 

 tions, and that you provide for the presentation of the 

 whole matter to our delegation in Congress and to the 

 nation in such light as will secure early and favorable 

 action. 



Whatever special advantage may accrue to Illinois 

 by reason of her having the canal within her borders, 

 will be fully her due in return for the millions she has 

 already expended on this work. The advantage to the 

 nation resulting from connecting the lakes with the 

 Mississippi River, the North and East with the West 

 and South, by a water-way through which can pass 

 the bulky products of the Mississippi Valley, will bo 

 infinitely more than the cost of such improvement. 



The deepening of the canal, so as to give a steady 

 southerly current of the waters of Lake Michigan into 

 the Illinois River, has been of immense sanitary ad- 

 vantage to the city of Chicago, and its effect has been 

 to purify the Chicago River, and in a great measure 

 save the sources of water-supply of that great city 

 from contamination by sewage. But, in consequence 

 of the enormous increase of population and manufac- 

 tures in Chicago, the supply of water flowing through 

 the canal does not sufficiently dilute the sewage to 

 make it innocuous, and the result is a serious injury 

 to the populous districts which border on the canal in 

 the counties of Will, Grundy, and La Salle. The evil 

 consequences of the insufficient supply of water are 

 most keenly felt in winter, and such representations 



