A NATIONAL BOARD OF HEALTH. 
467 
men should have is the knowledge of the actual working of hy¬ 
gienic boards in other countries. We should therefore have a 
National Board of Health in connection with State boards, which 
should be in connection with city and county boards, which should 
be in connection with the local officers; in no case, except where 
a mere statistician was needed, should a man fill such positions who 
was not gervaudt in path-anatomy, and full of the spirit of orig¬ 
inal investigation. 
The National Board of Health must be reformative , because 
the entire system of medical education by us is on the wrong basis. 
First, all our schools or institutions of education are the result of 
private effort, either connected with, or independent of any re¬ 
sponsible institution of education. According to Mr. J. S. Bil¬ 
lings, in “ A Century of American Medicine,” we had in 1876, 
fifty-nine medical schools in active operation. I do not hesitate to 
say that at least fifty of the same are in no way suited to the de¬ 
mands of the times , and that no one of them is regidated by the 
State as it should be. In no State should there be more than one 
medical school , which should be under the control of the State 
Board of Health. How that board should be elected will appear 
presently, yet we find in Kentucky four such schools, in Maryland 
three, in Massachusetts, u Gott sei Dank,” only one , in New York 
seven, in Ohio, Ye Gods ! six, in the District of Columbia, ‘‘worse 
and worser,” three; the story is indeed sad. A very striking ex¬ 
ample of the absurd ignorance of our legislators on this very im¬ 
portant subject is given by the State of New York, in reference to 
a collateral branch of medical education. It seems in this State, 
and probably every other, that any body of men can obtain a 
charter for organizing a school for medical education, under a 
c n 7 
general law r for the organization of charitable institutions, lunatic 
asylums , and institutions for general education ; under an older 
law, a specified sum of money must be raised, $50,000 I think, to 
legalize such an organization, but this proviso is nullified by the 
elasticity of the Act of Assembly of later date. In neither regu¬ 
lation do we find the State, that is our representatives , displaying 
any knowledge whatever of their responsibilities in this regard, 
nor do we find a single word restricting or regulating the standard 
