446 [Assembly 



sufficient age and experience. This is the more commendable, as 

 nearly all the duties of some of the officers are merely financial, yet 

 the incumbents may be, in the event of an epidemic, called upon to 

 exercise their professional judgment and skill. 



It cannot be denied that from witljin the confines of the city, more 

 serious danger is to be apprehended than from without. In the pent 

 up courts, the crowded tenements, the narrow streets and alleys, the 

 damp dark cellars, in the destitution, filth and misery of a large part 

 of our population, are the germs of disease, which will readily ac- 

 count for a large proportion of the weekly average of nearly 200 

 deaths, announced in the bills of mortality. 



In geographical position, in climatic placement, and in geological 

 structure, no site perhaps could be selected for all the purposes of a 

 great city, oj a more saluhrious character than Manhattan Island. 

 And yet whence this great mortality? It is not from without — dis- 

 ease is forbidden to approach our wharves. It can only be then, 

 from within, the poor people meet with :~uch abundant destruction. 

 Many of the immediate causes of this I have endeavored to point 

 out The remedy and preventive, are next to be considered, and I 

 will now invite attention to our Internal Health Police. This con- 

 sists of an officer entitled city inspector, and assistant city inspector, 

 an assistant to the board of health, and eighteen health wardens. 

 For fifteen or twenty years past, it has been deemed important that 

 the city inspector, (who stands in the relation of a head to this corps 

 of officials,) should possess medical attainments and qualifications, 

 inasmuch as many of his duties prescribed by ordinance, and many 

 others not prescribed, are of a character requiring that kind of 

 knowledge for their performance. In the last appointment, however, 

 to this office, this principle was repudiated for reasons not very clearly 

 set forth; it might have been considered as an oversight, had not an 

 opportunity been given for a revision of the act, by the presentation 

 of a memorial on the subject, by a very large number of medical 

 practitioners, which set forth in a clear light, the true nature of the 

 office, and the necessity of a medical education in its incumbent, and 

 which memorial was not only responded to favorably, but its princi- 

 ples denied in the report of a committee appointed to consider the 

 subject. The propriety of the appointment was insisted upon, and 

 the sentiment was expressed, that not only is a medical, or even a 

 literary education in the officer, unnecessary, but that without it, in 

 the language of the report, "he is likely to prove equally, if not more, 

 capable and efficient." I have no wish to criticise this remarkable 



