III.-Disturbance to Business. Another item of loss which cannot be given even by approximation is that from the disturabnce of the ordinary conditions upon which business calculations are based. It enters into many questions, among them that of life insurance, and requires in this place only a mention. IV.-Losses to New Orleans. The following special estimate of the losses that have accrued to the great commercial city of New Orleans, includes some items not considered by figures in the first class, such as loss on capital and depreciation of property; the total losses having been variously estimated by others at from twelve to one hundred millions of dollars: Cost of sickness of 27,000 persons, including attendance, nursing the sick, etc..... Cost of four thousand six hundred funerals at $25 .$1,200,000 115,000 1,800,000 Loss of the profits on the expenditures abroad of about 20,000 refugees, at $50 each.... 1,000,000 Losses in rents and of the interest on the capital represented by the depreciation of real estate. ..... 4,000,000 *Local commercial losses by interruption of business and diversion of trade, &c....... 5,000,000 * This last item has been estimated by competent authority as high as $10,000,000. I have voted in the negative upon propositions, 3, 4, 5, 10, 18, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27 and 57, for the following reasons: Whilst endorsing fully the necessity of a well-regulated quarantine to protect the people of this country against exposure to the importation of infectious diseases from abroad, and against the spread of similar diseases in our own midst, I hold the view that yellow fever may be developed by indigenous as well as by imported poison; nor can I express too strongly the conclusions to which this view leads me, namely that local hygiene is of equal importance with quarantine in checking the spread of the imported fever, and of absolute necessity to the prevention of that of domestic origin. I cannot overlook the fact that whilst fire will explode powder, the fire may be produced in one locality by electricity, in another by the collision of flint and steel, and in still another by striking a match. LOUIS A. FALLIGANT, M. D. [REPORT NO. 734.] Mr. HARRIS, from the Select Committee to investigate and report the best means of preventing the introduction and spread of Epidemic Diseases, submitted a report (No. 734), accompanied by the following bill; which was read the first and second times by unanimous consent. A BILL To prevent the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases into the United States, and to establish a Bureau of Public Health. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be established in the Treasury Department a Bureau of Health, with a chief executive officer, to be called the Director-General of Health, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who shall receive a salary of four thousand five hundred dollars per annum; and there shall be appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury, in said Bureau of Health, in addition to the clerks and assistants necessary to perform duties in connection with the Marine Hospital service, and whose salaries are payable out of the Marine Hospital fund, one chief clerk, at a salary of two thousand dollars, and such other clerks, in number and grade, as may be found necessary, not to exceed three. SEC. 2. That in connection with said Bureau of Health there shall be established a Board of Health, to consist of seven members, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose compensation during the time when actually engaged in the performance of their duties under this act, shall be ten dollars per diem and reasonable expenses. The Surgeon-General of the Army and the Surgeon-General of the Navy shall be ex-officio additional members of said board, but without additional pay. Said board shall meet in Washington within thirty days after the passage of this act, and in Washington or elsewhere from time to time upon notice from the Director-General of Health, or upon its own adjournments, and shall frame all rules and regulations authorized or required by this act, and shall make, or cause to be made, by members of their own body, such special examinations and investigations at any place or places within the United States as they may order, to aid in the execution of this act and the promotion of its objects, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. The Director-General of Health shall be ex-officio a member and president of said Board of Health. All rules and regulations framed under this act by said Board of Health shall be uniform and subject to the approval of the President, and shall be enforced by the Director-General of Health SEC. 3. That the Bureau of Health shall be charged with the supervision of all matters connected with the Marine Hospital Service; and the DirectorGeneral of Health shall perform all the duties and exercise all the powers now devolving upon the Supervising Surgeon of the Marine Hospital Service, which office is hereby abolished, and all the records, papers, and other matter belonging thereto transferred to the Bureau of Health; and said bureau is charged with the execution of the provisions of this and all other acts and measures to prevent the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases into the United States, and the enforcement of all quarantine regulations, lawfully established under the authority of the United States, in respect to all vessels and vehicles engaged in commerce with foreign nations and among the States, whether by land or water. The Bureau of Health shall also be charged with the execution of all laws and orders, rules and regulations, made in pursuance of law, for the improvement of the sanitary condition of the District of Columbia. The Bureau of Health shall also be charged with the duty of obtaining information of the sanitary condition of foreign ports and places from which contagious or infectious diseases are or may be imported into the United States; and to this end the consular officers of the United States at all ports and places, who may be required to do so, shall make to the DirectorGeneral of Health weekly reports of the sanitary condition of the ports and places at which they are respectively stationed, according to such forms as he may prescribe; and the Bureau of Health shall also obtain, through the medical officers of the Marine Hospital Service, collector of customs, and such other sources as are accessible, including State and municipal health officers and authorities throughout the United States, weekly reports of the sanitary condition of the ports and places within the United States; and the DirectorGeneral of Health shall prepare and transmit to the medical officers of the Marine Hospital Service, to collectors of customs, and to State and municipal health officers and authorities, weekly abstracts of the consular sanitary reports, and other pertinent information received by him; and said Bureau of Health shall also, as far as it may be able, by means of the voluntary cooperation of State and municipal authorities, of public associations and private persons, procure information relating to the climatic and other conditions affecting the public health; and the Director-General of Health shall make an annual report to the Secretary of the Treasury of the operations of the Bureau of Health, for transmission to Congress, with such recommendations as he may deem important to the public interests. SEC. 4. That it shall be unlawful for any vessel engaged in the transportation of goods or persons from any foreign port where any contagious or infectious disease exists to and into the United States to enter any port of the United States except in accordance with the provisions of this act, and all rules and regulations made in pursuance thereof and applicable thereto; and any such vessel which shall enter or attempt to enter a port of the United States in violation thereof shall forfeit to the United States a sum, to be awarded in the discretion of the court, not exceeding five thousand dollars, which shall be a lien upon said vessel, to be recovered by proceedings in admiralty in the proper district court of the United States. SEC. 5. All such vessels shall be required to obtain from the consul, viceconsul, or other consular officer of the United States at the port of departure, a certificate, in duplicate, setting forth that said vessel has in all respects complied with the rules and regulations in such cases prescribed, and herein authorized, for the disinfection of the said vessel, its cargo, passengers, and crew; and said consular officer is required, before granting such certificate, to be satisfied that the matters and things therein stated are true, and for his services in that behalf shall be entitled to demand and receive such fees as shall by lawful regulation be allowed, to be accounted for as is required in other cases. And all vessels sailing from the port of Havana, in the island of Cuba, and bound for any port in the United States, shall be required to obtain from a medical officer, serving in the office of the consul of the United States at that port, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for that purpose, and who shall receive a salary of three thousand five hundred dollars per annum, his certificate setting forth that he has personally inspected said vessel, her cargo, crew, and passengers; that the rules and regulations prescribed by the Bureau of Health in respect thereto have been fully complid with; and that, in his opinion, the said vessel may be allowed to enter any port of the United States and land its cargo and passengers, without danger to the health thereof on account of any contagious or infectious disease; and any vessel sailing from said port without such certificate of said medical officer, entering any port of the United States, shall forfeit to the United States the sum of five hundred dollars, which shall be a lien on the same, to be recovered by proceedings in admiralty in the proper district court of the United States. SEC. 6. The Director-General of Health shall, from time to time, issue to the consular officers of the United States, and to the medical officer serving at the port of Havana, and otherwise make publicly known, in such manner as shall be therein prescribed, the rules and regulations framed by the Board of Health and approved by the President, to be used and complied with by vessels in foreign ports, for disinfecting such vessels, their cargoes, passengers, and crew, before their departure for any port in the United States, and in the course of the voyage; and also such other rules and regulations which shall be observed in the inspection of the same, on the arrival thereof at any quarantine station at the port of destination, and for the disinfection and isolation of the same, and the treatment of cargo and persons on board, so as to prevent the spread of cholera, yellow fever, or other contagious or infectious disease; and it shall not be lawful for any vessel to enter said port, to |