290 
Modern  Medicine. 
Am.  Jour.  Phann. 
June,  1915. 
4.  Medical  practice  act  including  the  regulation  of  midwives  and 
all  sects  treating  the  sick  for  compensation. 
5.  Law  authorizing  city  and  county  health  organizations  with 
definite  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  State  board. 
6.  Food  and  drugs  act. 
7.  Law  regulating  water  supply,  sewage  and  waste  disposal. 
8.  Milk  and  dairy  law. 
9.  Law  providing  for  sanitary  and  health  inspection  of  schools. 
10.  Industrial  disease  law. 
Such  a  bureau  is  not  intended  in  any  sense  as  compulsory  or 
dictatorial,  but  rather  for  the  guidance  and  advice  of  those  State 
associations,  committees  or  persons  who  may  desire  assistance.  On 
each  subject,  all  the  available  material  will  be  secured  and  carefully 
studied  and  a  model  bill  drafted  which  will  be  widely  circulated  for 
criticisms  and  suggestions  so  that  the  resulting  measure  when  com- 
pleted will  contain  the  combined  wisdom  and  experience  of  all  those 
interested. 
But  such  a  central  bureau  can  only  be  advisory.  Under  our  form 
of  government,  the  greater  part  of  the  public  health  legislation  and 
administration  must  come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  gov- 
ernment. However  desirable  and  valuable  may  be  a  national  depart- 
ment of  health,  it  can  never  take  the  place  of  properly  organized 
and  administered  State  regulation  of  health  matters.  To  the  people 
of  each  State,  then,  the  injunction  must  be  to  "  work  out  your  own 
salvation,"  for  salvation  from  disease  can  come  only  through  the 
education  and  the  cooperation  of  the  people.  To  you  as  physicians, 
and  to  your  State  association  as  your  organized  body,  belongs  the 
responsibility,  as  the  possessors  of  scientific  knowledge  and  as  the 
representatives  of  the  medical  profession,  of  giving  to  your  people 
the  truth  and  of  guiding  them  in  the  right  direction  in  order  that  the 
results  which  they  may  reach  may  be  the  best  possible  results.  This 
cannot  be  done  through  the  use  of  political  methods  or  machine 
tactics,  by  die  use  of  personal  influence  or  the  exercise  of  despotic 
power,  but  can  become  possible  only  through  you,  as  individuals  and 
as  an  organization,  embracing  every  possible  opportunity  to  place  by 
every  available  method  the  truth  before  your  people  in  order  that 
they,  like  the  people  in  all  ages,  may  know  the  truth  and  the  truth 
may  make  them  free. 
