158  United  States  Public  Health  Service.  |  AmipSir'i34  ™* 
spread  of  communicable  diseases,  but  sanitary  measures  to  prevent 
their  propagation.  These  include  the  sanitation  of  trains  and  vessels 
and  the  supplies  used  aboard,  the  regulation  of  conditions  under 
which  the  employees  of  common  carriers  work,  and  the  exclusion  of 
dangerous  or  infected  merchandise  from  transportation. 
On  account  of  the  relation  of  epidemics  to  the  hygienic  and 
commercial  welfare  of  the  country,  the  Federal  Public  Health  Service 
may,  under  the  provisions  of  the  above-mentioned  law,  assume  re- 
sponsibilities in  respect  to  their  control  under  the  direction  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  President.  In  the  event  of  out- 
breaks of  cholera,  yellow  fever,  smallpox,  plague,  or  typhus  fever 
in  any  part  of  the  United  States,  the  President  is  also  authorized  to 
cause  regulations  to  be  issued  and  enforced  to  prevent  their  spread, 
and  an  epidemic  fund  of  approximately  half  a  million  dollars  is 
appropriated  annually  for  expenditures  of  the  Federal  Public  Health 
Service  in  suppressing  epidemics  of  these  diseases. 
It  is  under  such  authority  that  the  epidemics  of  yellow  fever  in 
the  Southern  States,  the  outbreaks  of  plague  in  California  and  our 
island  possessions,  and  similar  outbreaks  have  been  handled. 
Relation  of  the  Public  Health  Service  to  Pharmacy, 
The  reorganization  of  the  Marine-Hospital  Service  in  1871,  under 
the  direction  of  a  supervising  surgeon-general,  materially  broadened 
the  object  and  scope  of  the  service  and  evidenced  the  advisability  of 
extending  the  work  so  as  to  provide  for  much  needed  supervision 
of  varied  interests  relating  to  the  public  health. 
Of  the  many  activities  that  were  early  developed  by  the  service 
in  this  connection,  few  are  of  more  wide-spread  importance  to  the 
welfare  of  the  public  at  large,  or  more  intimately  connected  with 
the  medical  efficiency  of  the  service  itself,  than  the  efficient  control 
of  medicinal  substances  and  active  participation  and  interest  in  the 
revision  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States.  This  service 
has  been  regularly  represented  at  each  decennial  meeting  of  the 
Pharmacopceial  Revision  Convention  held  since  its  reorganization 
as  a  bureau  in  1871,  and  several  of  the  representatives  of  the  Marine- 
Hospital  Service  have  served  as  members  of  the  revision  committee. 
The  first  of  the  representatives  of  the  service  to  be  elected  to  serve 
as  a  member  of  the  Committee  of  Revision  was  a  pharmacist,  Oscar 
Oldberg,  who  was  the  delegate  of  the  then  U.  S.  Marine-Hospital 
