36 J. H. MAIDEN. 
with the re-organisation of his department have prevented Dr. 
Ashburton Thompson, the new President, from giving the same 
attention, during the past year, to original investigation in matters 
pertaining to Public Health, that he has undertaken in past 
years. The most important event connected with the public 
health during the past year was the successful passage of a Public 
Health Act. Such a measure had for many years been demanded 
by the public, and formally advocated by successive premiers ; the 
late Sir Henry Parkes indeed went a step further than that, and 
actually introduced a measure in 1886, which, however, was never 
debated; and it remained for the present premier, the Hon. George 
Reid to place a new and short Public Health Act on the statute 
book. The act is framed to allow the fullest measure of local self- 
government in this respect, and at the same time gives the Board 
of Health effective powers of control ; it provides for appointment 
of medical officers of health, for the notification of infectious 
diseases, for controlling the adulteration of food, and for dealing 
with unwholesome dwellings, which may be either condemned or 
put into habitable condition as may be possible; it requires 
registrars of deaths to enter the cause of death in their registers, 
and to distinguish between uncertified and certified deaths—points 
which have been carefully attended to for many years past by 
departmental arrangement but which are now for the first time 
directed by law; it furnishes what is expected to prove a direct 
and speedy means of dealing with nuisances ; and it amends one 
or two existing acts in rather important respects. At the same 
time, while the constitution of the Board of Health remained — 
unchanged in quality its numbers were reduced, and it was decided 
that for the future the President should be a civil servant, wholly 
employed in discharge of his functions in that capacity, and also 
as the Chief Medical Officer of the Government. 
During the year foundations of a new building for use of the — . 
Health Department were laid ; this is now rapidly approaching 
completion, and it will afford accommodation for the clerical and a 
professional staff of the Health Department on the ground floor; 
SM eee Pee te UA yn Re ee ee 
