158 MICROBES AND HEALTH. 



that consumption is contagious, notwithstanding the 

 fact that the ablest men in the profession say that it is 

 not. The bill asks for a grant of what is practically 

 unlimited power to adopt and execute such measures 

 as the board may deem necessary to stamp out the dis- 

 ease. That is to say, any person suspected of con- 

 sumption has no rights which the health board is bound 

 to respect. He may be snatched away from home, 

 friends and business, buried alive in some cheerless 

 hospital, there to drag out a miserable, monotonous 

 existence, at the dictum of a few political doctors. 



The men who compose our health boards are seldom 

 men of large clinical experience. In the very nature 

 of things, men who are doing large practices have no 

 time to give to official duties. It is the men who de- 

 vote themselves to the theoretical and speculative side 

 of medical science who seek office, then misrepresent 

 the profession and usurp their rights, by their abuse of 

 authority. We should like to know on what grounds 

 health boards assume the right to act for the profes- 

 sion/' etc., etc. 



Again quoting from the September, 1899, number: 

 "Our local board of health is again at work, trying to 

 secure the passage of an ordinance empowering it to 

 take measures as may seem necessary to prevent the 

 spread of tuberculosis. The text of the ordinance is 

 very broad in its scope, giving the board full control 

 of all cases of consumption. Physicians are required 

 to report every case in their care, and the board is em- 

 powered to fumigate the houses of patients, and make 

 other provisions to prevent the spread of the disease. 



