SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1884. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The treasury officials have partially reversed 

 the obnoxious rulings by which recently they 

 compelled public institutions to pay duty, or 

 incur more onerous burdens still, in order to 

 get through the custom-house the publications 

 which congress had said they should have free 

 of such charge. Their last circular is almost 

 insulting in pointedly prescribing the business- 

 agents of such institutions as persons whose 

 oaths the}' will not take. The government of 

 these bodies, situated often at such a distance 

 from ports of entry that they cannot conven- 

 iently attend to the business details of importa- 

 tion, appoint agents, whom the} 7 trust, and 

 who, from experience, can serve the institutions 

 better than they can serve themselves. These 

 institutions are now practically told by the 

 treasury officials that the oaths of such ap- 

 pointees are not good enough for them, and 

 that, to get the privileges which congress has 

 awarded to these institutions in the interests of 

 learning and progress, the governing bodies of 

 them must be subjected to such impertinent 

 discipline as it pleases the treasury officials to 

 impose. The}' are plainly told that they may 

 accredit all the agents they please, but the 

 oaths of such agents cannot be taken. An 

 oath, then, is not an oath, except as the treasu- 

 ry may approve the giver of it. This body of 

 men who are thus traduced by the government 

 are the importing book-dealers of the country. 



The recent conference at St. Louis, of repre- 

 sentatives from nearly all of the existing state 

 boards of health, and their decision to meet at 

 Washington in December, bring prominently 

 forward the question of a national authority in 

 health matters. The present National board 

 of health was organized in April, 1879, under 

 an act passed at the close of the forty-fifth con- 

 No. 92. — 1884. 



gress. The board consists of seven members 

 appointed by the president, one medical officer 

 of army, navy, and marine hospital service re- 

 spectively, and one officer from the department 

 of justice. In the early days of the board it 

 was called upon to deal with a very serious 

 outbreak of yellow-fever in Memphis and oth- 

 er localities. The measures adopted at this 

 time had an undoubted influence in the suppres- 

 sion of these outbreaks. In addition to this 

 work, numerous investigations into causes of 

 epidemic diseases and sanitary survey were 

 made, the published results of which have be- 

 come too well known to need recital here. 

 While doing a most useful work, the moderate 

 appropriation at the service of the board at- 

 tracted the hostile criticism of certain members 

 of congress, who succeeded in procuring legis- 

 lation that limited the fund at the disposal of 

 the board to twenty-five thousand dollars, with 

 the proviso that their duties and investigations 

 should be limited to the diseases cholera, yel- 

 low-fever, and small-pox. The next congress 

 made no appropriation whatever for the board, 

 and it is practically dead. 



Having in mind the valuable services rendered 

 by this organization, it is not easy, at first sight, 

 to perceive the causes of its overthrow. These 

 were, first, the department of the treasury, 

 which asserts a claim to the disbursement of all 

 funds appropriated by congress for the suppres- 

 sion of epidemic diseases, and to the selection 

 of a medical officer of its own as agent in these 

 operations ; second, the active hostility of the 

 State board of health of Louisiana, and the jeal- 

 ousy of some of the great commercial communi- 

 ties in regard to all quarantine restrictions ; 

 last, the composition of the board itself. As 

 above stated, this consists of seven members 

 at large, representing but seven of the thirty- 

 eight states, — possibly the most important, 

 perhaps the smallest, in the Union. Pennsyl- 

 vania and Ohio have not been represented on 



