State Board of health. 
275 
The board, while desiring explicit answers to the above questions, 
will, if you are unable to give such answers positively, be glad of 
your opinion (stated as such) on any of the questions, and any addi¬ 
tional information you may be pleased to give, concerning sources 
or removable causes of disease, will be thankfully received and used 
with discretion, and the name of the writer and locality referred to 
omitted from our report, if so requested. 
In your reply to these questions, it will not be necessary to re¬ 
peat them, but simply refer to them by number. 
Please let your report be understood to cover the year ending 
September 1, 1876, and all replies should be mailed to this office 
(in inclosed stamped envelope) by September 20th. 
By direction of the Wisconsin State Board of Health. 
Very respectfully, J. T. Reeve, M. D., 
Secretary. 
Circular number two, a special circular of inquiry, was issued in 
the month of August, and sent to something more than two hun¬ 
dred physicians, embracing nearly every county in the state. Re¬ 
plies have been received from fifty-seven physicians, to all of whom 
the thanks of the board are due. These replies cover more than 
half the counties, and from them there has been obtained much in¬ 
formation concerning the general health of the state, and many val¬ 
uable suggestions concerning removable or preventable causes of 
disease. It is particularly gratifying to note the cordial manner in 
which the objects of the board are commended, and the assurances 
of active co-operation with it. Many of these letters speak of the 
desirability of establishing local boards of health — boards which 
shall have not only a legal existence, but which shall have vitality, 
and be efficient co-workers with this board, in the effort to secure 
for every man and every locality the best sanitary surroundings 
which it is possible for it to attain. While it is true that responses 
were received from less than one-third of those addressed, I regard 
this experience as justifying the belief that an ample and energetic 
corps of correspondents can be secured. An analysis of these 
papers shows that, while there have been extensive epidemics of 
small pox, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough and diptheria, yet 
there has, on the whole, been a very general decrease of sickness 
and of death, as compared with former years. 
The entire correspondence, which is in possession of the board, 
