A NATIONAL BOAKD OF HEALTH. 
469 
studied. We have endeavored to show that the work of the Na¬ 
tional Board of Health must be reformative , and we have en¬ 
deavored to show wlieue the reform must begin. We cannot have 
such men as are absolutely indispensible to our needs, under our 
present system of education in our medical schools. The work of 
reform cannot be done in a day—it will take years ; but the first 
mighty step toward progress must be a National Board of Health 
and State Boards in every State; for that we have men enough. 
The next necessary step is to have the National Board, or dele¬ 
gates from each State Board, fix one standard of medical exami¬ 
nation for the medical schools of the entire land, so that the peo¬ 
ple in every State may feel sure of having men of at least some¬ 
thing approximating a substantial education. These regulations 
'should be most earnestly recommended by the State Boards to 
the Legislatures of their respective States, and the entire medi¬ 
cal profession in each State should, by active discussion and advo¬ 
cacy in the daily papers, educate the people up to this absolutely 
necessary standpoint. 
The State Boards of Health should not be appointed by the 
Governor of each State, but by election by the medical society of 
each State, until such a time as in each State, an organized body 
of highly educated medical officers is found, when the members 
of the State Boards should be elected from the same, by the same, 
and hold office until sixty years old, if well and able bodied, and 
should be handsomely paid. Any member of the State Board 
found unqualified, should be dismissed by the vote of the majority 
of the Board. The plan now offered for the naming of the National 
Board is good enough, but in the future the same should be elected 
by delegates from the State Boards, and the numbers of the Na¬ 
tional Board should be arranged according to certain, to be yet 
constituted, electoral districts; for instance, while each New 
England State should send a delegate to elect a member of the 
National Board, the entire New England States should have but 
one member in the same; the Pacific Coast one, and the West and 
Middle States divided up correspondingly. These positions must 
not be political, and the holders must be named until sixty years 
old, or to be retired on pensions on becoming used up by work 
