416 
GLANDERS IN ILLINOIS. 
Such of the expenses incurred as are not legitimately a charge 
upon individuals, townships or counties, or defrayed out of the 
continguent fund appropriated by each General Assembly for the 
use of the State Board in preventing the spread of epidemic con¬ 
tagious or infectious diseases. 
In conclusion it should be observed that while the State Board 
of Health is vested with the power and authority already de¬ 
scribed, in practice its functions are largely those of a co-ordi¬ 
nating, directing and advisory body. Upon emergency it may, 
and does, assume entire control, and may formulate and enforce 
whatever measures it deems necessary for the preservation of the 
public health, as for example, in its dealing with yellow fever 
during the epidemics of 1878-79, and with small-pox during the 
past two years. What it then did with reference to those dis¬ 
eases it would be entirely competent for it to do with reference 
to cattle plague, or rinderpest, or Texas fever, should the emer¬ 
gency arise, as is shown by its action in the glanders’ outbreaks. 
In the majority of instances, however, the local health author¬ 
ities, supported by the power and authority of the State Board, 
are able to deal with the questions and conditions which ordina¬ 
rily arise, without appealing to the Board to assume control. 
A marked instance of the practical efficiency of a local health 
authority is afforded by the history of the Texas fever in 1868. 
At that time I was Sanitary Superintendent of the city of Chicago, 
with supervision and authority, for sanitary purposes, of an area 
of five miles beyond the city limits. The first fatal case of the 
fever was reported in the Union Stock-Yards on the 25th of 
July; another death occurred on the 29th, and on August 1st 
other cases were detected. By this time the health officer was 
investigating the outbreak at the Stock-Yards; one of the most 
efficient of my sanitary Inspectors, with his policeman, had been 
placed in charge of the threatened area within the city limits, 
and I was visiting the Stock-Yards daily and the slaughter¬ 
houses twice a day. A quarantine of exclusion was rigidly en¬ 
forced against all cattle from infected districts, whether native or 
Texan; and, in order to protect other points, the removal of ani¬ 
mals, concerning whose condition there was any doubt, was strictly 
