62 PRELIMINARIES 



Many sanitary reforms are started badly. It is 

 common to find health officers* beginning important 

 health reforms with a long proposal containing a tire- 

 some schedule of irritating by-laws to be passed by 

 the town council. The by-laws are bound to tread 

 upon the toes of somebody. Then ensues an endless 

 discussion. Lastly, the object of the proposed by- 

 laws is forgotten in the heat of party strife. Little 

 can be done by such means. The writer has wit- 

 nessed a comedy in which a bacteriologist memo- 

 rialised a Committee, consisting largely of natives, 

 demanding 50 for the destruction of twenty goats 

 which had Malta fever. But the memorial was so 

 full of " terrible technical terms " that the proposal 

 was negatived before it was read. It was not under- 

 stood. Malta fever continues there as before. 



The reduction of domestic mosquitos is best con- 

 ducted without petty rules and regulations, which 

 only irritate householders more than mosquitos, and 

 persecute the proprietors of property. Afterwards, 

 if a new by-law is urgently needed it can be brought 

 forward with experience to back it up. But at first 

 new legislation should be avoided. Advertise the 

 nature of the proposed work, and state emphatically 

 that it is going to be done. Have confidence, and 

 then do it. In many countries the sanitary author- 

 ity has not the power, without endless formality, to 

 force his way into houses with a view to finding out 

 insanitary conditions. The only way to overcome 

 this difficulty is to advertise openly that it is the 

 mosquitos that are going to be attacked, and not the 



