JUNE 14, 1901.] 
in the seaboard States. While this is true, 
the Marine Hospital Service, in scope and 
design, does not fulfill in highest degree the 
objects of a central coordinating agency 
for the protection of the public health. It 
was thought to create a Department of 
Public Health, with its executive officer in 
the cabinet, but this idea yielded to that of 
a bureau in charge of a large Advisory 
Council, composed of representatives from 
various States. Resolutions have been 
adopted and memorials have been sent 
to the Congress, committees have been ap- 
pointed, money has been appropriated by 
this Association, bills have been introduced, 
and hearings have been had in committee, 
with the result that the conditions to-day 
are precisely the same that they were ten 
years ago, when the agitation was inaugu- 
rated in the session of this Association held 
at Washington. 
Secretary Wilson, of the Department of 
Agriculture, in his Report for 1899, rec- 
ommended that the Congress appropriate 
: money to defray the expense of a systematic 
investigation of the medicinal flora of the 
United States and of experiments upon the 
neutralization of medicinal plants indig- 
enous to other countries. This recommen- 
dation was based upon the fact that the 
United States is the only great country 
which either has not conducted or is not 
conducting such experiments, and upon the 
fact that the proposed measure, touching the 
avenues of industry, manufacture, com- 
merce and the public health, was one of na- 
tional concern. This measure, however, 
with its manifest importance, was denied 
even courteous consideration, while its 
friends were denied a hearing by the com- 
mittees of the Congress. 
The cause of failure on the part of this 
Association to procure legislation by the 
Congress—and, with the exception of pre- 
venting the passage of the anti-vivisection 
bill last year and securing the enactment of 
SCIENCE. 
929 
the quarantine bill this year, our recent 
efforts must be recognized as failures—I say 
the causes of our failure are properly sub- 
jects for careful consideration. I have ex- 
amined the records of the Association from 
the date of its organization, and have been 
profoundly impressed with the fact that 
memorials, resolution, or even more defi- 
nite propositions addressed to the Congress 
have, for the most. part, represented the 
views, or rather the impressions, of the in- 
dividual members proposing them. They 
have generally been presented in the gen- 
eral-meeting and have been endorsed with- 
out the deliberation essential for wise action; 
but a deliberation which is simply impos- 
sible in the limited time available in our 
general meetings. In certain instances 
memorials to the Congress have been pre- 
sented at one session of the Association, 
have been referred to committees and re- 
ported back for action, either at a later 
meeting of the same session or at the suc- 
ceeding annual session of the Association. 
But it becomes evident that this course 
lessens the evil but a trifle, for the reason 
that the committees to which such matters 
were referred have been constituted either 
under the leadership of the member pro- 
posing the measure or of members of a 
standing committee who had no interest 
in or understanding of the proposed mea- 
sure. Such memorials, resolutions or 
propositions, when acted upon affirma- 
tively by the general meeting of the As- 
sociation, have, possibly, been mailed to 
some member of Congress or of a Legisla- 
ture, but were not followed by effective 
work in the rank and file of the profession 
or among their patrons. When such bills 
have been presented to the Congress, and 
have received a certain amount of support 
from representatives of this Association, 
they have, as a rule, attained only that de- 
gree of importance that have made them 
valuable to their ostensible champions, as 
