5 2 Report of the President 



strated the practicability of having a department in the Museum 

 which should have for its function the presentation of matters 

 pertaining to public health. Primarily, it was the popularity 

 of the Tuberculosis Exhibit, combined with the increased 

 public attention which is being given to sanitation, water 

 supply and other municipal problems of this nature, which 

 induced the Trustees to establish a Department of Public 

 Health in the Museum. 



The work of this department began the first of September, 

 1910. A bacteriological laboratory has been equipped with 

 facilities for keeping under cultivation living bacterial species 

 in what might be termed a " museum collection." This is the 

 first attempt in this country to standardize these forms of life 

 through museum methods. Arrangements have been made 

 with the leading laboratories in New York, Chicago, Baltimore, 

 Washington and Boston for obtaining specimens of the 

 organisms in their possession. The department will act as a 

 central bureau for the preservation of cultures of pathogenic 

 and non-pathogenic bacteria (particularly of types of new 

 forms and varieties), and for their distribution to correspond- 

 ing laboratories and schools and other institutions which may 

 desire them. 



The principal work of the department since its institution 

 has been devoted to the preparation of an exhibit of sewage 

 disposal models, to illustrate present conditions in regard to 

 the pollution of the harbor waters of New York and the 

 methods available for the safe and inoffensive disposal of city 

 waste. This subject was selected because the Metropolitan 

 Sewerage Commission of New York was to make an exhibit at 

 the Museum this winter, and it was felt that the department 

 could do a useful work in supplementing the charts of the 

 Commission with graphic models. The fourteen models which 

 have been prepared form a fairly complete presentation of the 

 most important aspects of the subject, and constitute a suit- 

 able nucleus for a permanent Museum exhibit on the subject 

 of sewage disposal. A Guide Leaflet has been prepared in 

 connection with this exhibit, which it is hoped may be of 

 service in elucidating the principles underlying the task of the 

 protection of river and harbor waters. 



