336 
State  Control  of  Diseases. 
j  Am.  Jour.  Phartn. 
{       July,  1910. 
The  department  in  three  years  has  immunized  with  antitoxin  14,527 
persons,  nearly  all  children,  who  had  been  exposed  to  the  disease. 
Of  these  only  251  acquired  it — a  little  more  than  one  per  cent. 
The  State  Department  of  Health's  free  distribution  of  antitoxin  to 
the  poor,  therefore,  has  saved  over  8000  lives  at  an  average  cost  of 
seven  dollars  each  and  prevented  contagion  in  several  thousands  of 
cases  at  an  average  cost  of  two  dollars. 
I  cannot  too*  earnestly  acknowledge  the  cordial  manner  in  which 
my  colleagues  of  the  medical  profession  have  supported  me  in  my 
efforts  for  the  control  of  infection.  At  great  personal  inconvenience 
they  have  performed  the  not  inconsiderable  labor  of  reporting  con- 
tagious diseases  and  it  is  gratifying  to  be  able  to  state  that  the  more 
intelligent  and  careful  physicians  are  now  setting  a  good  example 
to  their  less  scrupulous  professional  colleagues  by  using  protective 
gowns  in  making  examinations  in  cases  of  communicable  disease  and 
disinfecting  their  persons  and  especially  their  clinical  thermometers, 
and,  in  the  same  way,  doctors  of  dental  surgery  are  cleansing  and 
disinfecting  their  instruments  and  the  separate  handles  of  the  same 
after  use  in  each  case. 
To  you,  gentlemen  of  the  pharmaceutical  profession,  do  we  owe 
acknowledgments  also  for  your  readiness  to  act,  entirely  without 
compensation,  as  distributors  of  antitoxin,  thus  enabling  the  depart- 
ment to  reach  every  poor  sufferer  in  the  state  with  the  promptness 
which  is  so  essential  to  the  successful  use  of  that  agent. 
Control  of  Tuberculosis. — As  has  already  "been  stated  the 
Legislature  of  1907  gave  the  State  Department  of  Health  a  total 
appropriation  for  tuberculosis  of  one  million  dollars  and  in  1909 
increased  this  appropriation  to  two  million  dollars. 
The  present  plan  of  the  state  governmental  anti-tuberculosis  work 
may  be  summarized  under  the  following  headings : 
First:  The  collection  and  tabulation  of  statistics  relating  to 
tuberculosis  through  official  morbidity  and  mortality  reports  of  each 
individual  case. 
Second :  The  establishment  of  one  or  more  sanatoria  for  the 
treatment  of  incipient  cases,  including  infirmaries  for  advanced  and 
hopeless  cases. 
Third :  The  establishment  of  dispensaries  in  each  county  of  the 
state  for  the  care  of  cases  which  cannot  avail  themselves  of  sana- 
torium treatment,  including  home  visitations  and  the  study  of  occu- 
pational conditions. 
