450 [Assembly 



or police office, to perform all the medical and surgical duties that 

 may be required at those places, at the call of any officer attached 

 thereto; and to do all other things that may be required by the city 

 inspector. 



The performance of the duties of this last section by a muni<jipal 

 officer, it will be at once seen, will relieve the common council of 

 all the annoyance attendant upon the examination, and passage 

 or rejection, of the numerous small bills now frequently laid before 

 them. 



It is evident that under such an arrangement as this, the duties of 

 the dispensary physician would be performed with a greater degree 

 of cheerfulness and care. The stimulus of a better remuneration, 

 without the addition of any other duty than such as would tend to 

 reduce the amount of his professional labors, and of a character not 

 merely not incongruous with, but really in aid of those labors, the 

 duties of both offices requiring generally but a little more time than 

 is now given to one, there could be obtained for the joint office, men, 

 of such character and age, as would not only prove a blessing to the 

 poor, but a great assistance to the higher authorities, and give a pro- 

 found satisfaction, and feeling of every possible security, to the whole 

 community. 



Not the least among the advantages derivable from the proposed 

 combination, is this, that this corps of professional men, (selected as 

 they are, and doubtless ever will be, by the trustees of the dispensa- 

 ries, as those best qualified, without the slightest reference to politi- 

 cal opinion,) being ex officio health inspectors, though commissioned 

 as such by another power (the board of health), if found competent, 

 the department would be at once raised above the corrupting atmos- 

 phere of partizanship, and we should then no more hear of public 

 duties neglected for fear of making a political enemy, or through 

 favor to a political friend; a practice too prevalent in this depart- 

 ment under its present organization. 



In the protection of public health, as well as in private practice, 

 party zeal should be entirely repudiated; it is incompatible with 

 sound judgment and efficient action. 



If any one department, either of government or of private occu- 

 pation (and the remark has as much weight in one case as in the 

 -other), should, more than another, be above the influence of political 

 favoritism, and be sustained upon its intrinsic merits, it is that which 



