HON. HOMER FOLKS, LL.D. 353 



hensive and successful of the state campaigns for the prevention 

 of tuberculosis, resulting in the enactment of a number of impor- 

 tant statutes and the establishment, throughout the state, of a 

 series of tuberculosis hospitals and tuberculosis dispensaries, and 

 the employment of a large number of tuberculosis visiting nurses. 



Mr. Folks was president of the National Conference of Chari- 

 ties and Correction at the time it met in Boston, in 1911, and 

 was president of the American Association for the Study and 

 Prevention of Infant Mortality in 1915. 



One of the by-products of the tuberculosis campaign in the 

 state of New York was the establishment of a special Public 

 Health Commission in 1913, to recommend an entire revision 

 of the public health law. Mr. Folks was secretary of this com- 

 mission which secured the enactment by the legislature of an 

 entirely new public health law for the state, which has since been 

 copied in substance by a number of other states, including 

 Massachusetts. One of the provisions of the law was for the 

 establishment of a State Public Health Council, with power to 

 enact sanitary regulations having the force of law throughout 

 the state. Mr. Folks was appointed a member of this Council, 

 and has served as such since its establishment. 



In July, 1917, Mr. Folks went to France for the American Red 

 Cross and organized and directed its Department of Civil Affairs. 

 In this department were developed bureaus dealing with tubercu- 

 losis, child welfare, cripples, relief in the war zone, and relief of 

 refugees through France. Large numbers of physicians, nurses, 

 and trained social workers were secured from America. In less 

 than a year the department had a well-organized staff of 1,400 

 workers and its expenditures for the relief of French war victims 

 amounted to #4,000,000 per month. At the end of the war Mr. 

 Folks, then a Lieutenant Colonel of the American Red Cross, 

 was asked to make a survey of the condition and needs of the 

 civilian populations of Italy, Greece, Serbia, and Belgium, as 

 well as of France, for the use of the American Red Cross in out- 

 lining its further plans for war relief in Europe. He acquitted 

 himself of this difficult task in his usual thorough manner. 



The tuberculosis and, in fact, the entire public health move- 

 ment in New York state has had no more valiant and worthy 

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