REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE BOARD.

To His Excellency Leon Abbett,

GOVERNOR-I have the honor, in behalf of the State Board of Health of New Jersey, to present to you its ninth report. In the initial work of this Board, there was some occasion to feel that the public mind was not sufficiently interested in the object for which it had been created, and did not fully realize the evils resulting from preventable diseases.

As it has progressed, it has been able, from year to year, to recognize a growing appreciation for all that relates to the health of the people. The work no longer lacks a constituency. Indeed, our greater anxiety is to be equal to the responsibilities which it involves, and to be able to respond to the intelligent inquiry and aid which is so frequently manifest. It is now seldom necessary to argue the necessity of a care for the public health. The demand of the present is to know what are the real teachings of sanitary science, what are the appliances of sanitary art, and what modes of administration are the most practical and most successful. We are out from the long range of general principles into the close contact with actual applications. Just what to do and how to do it, are the close and urgent questions which do not admit of glittering generalities.

It is pleasing to know that such demands are being met. Any practitioner of the sanitary art, whether it be the architect, the engineer, the physician, or the sanitary counselor, is aware that there is far more of real and exact knowledge than has yet been applied.

If called upon to-day to execute drainage for health, to build houses, or form streets, to procure good water-supply, or provide for disposal of all decayable matter, there are those to be found who can construct and carry on a sanitary city at an expense that would be as economical of money as it would be of health and of life. Various sciences and arts have been laid under tribute and have transferred to the science of hygiene the items of knowledge that make up its aggre

gated value. The sanitarian has so applied these to the vital problems of existence as to have organized a special department, whose aim and result is the diminution of human ailments and the prolongation of life. Its field has widened and is still widening with all the breadth of an applied science. It is no longer the question of how to remove filth or manage an epidemic. It enters upon definite plans to prevent such accumulations and to deal with disease before it attains the proportions of an epidemic.

It inquires into the modes of maintaining personal health for the population at large. It concerns itself as to the care of children, in the home and the school, and seeks to interrupt the many physical evils to which the young and growing populations have long been subjected. It enters the factory and workshop and claims that labor should be relieved of all the avoidable burdens of unhealthy conditions, and that the young shall not sacrifice bodily vigor and education to the demands either of the parent or the employer.

It examines into the quantity and quality of foods, and is able to designate the most valuable sources and combinations, and what cookery can do to aid in appetite and nutrition. It inquires into disease, in order that it may know where and how the departure from health began, and how to guard others from the repetition of the same error, as well as to apply the laws of hygiene to the recovery of those already affected. It keeps account with life and health, and with its statistics is able to show where the debilitating and destructive forces of misguided nature are disturbing or destroying mankind.

It proves that the greatest material resource of a State is its population; that to care for it is to husband these resources and turn them into channels of successful industry.

Hence, the statesman and the political economist are beginning to look to the health of the people as the central idea of happiness, prosperity and wealth.

This advance in the recognition of the meaning and intent of hygiene has led to some corresponding changes in the work of the Board. While it is still necessary, to some degree and in accord with the original law, to gather information for diffusion among the people," it is now far more important to educate individuals in the technical work of oversight, inspection and execution, and to perfect the details of sanitary administration. The past year has been especially prosperous because additional legislation, and the decisions

of the highest court, have empowered local Boards, so as to make them more available and efficient, and because general impressions and promiscuous opinions have, to a larger degree than formerly, given place to accurate investigations and detailed reports.

Thus we have on file to-day a graphic outline of nearly every school-house in New Jersey, with answers to all those questions which most concern the teachers and pupils who, for a part of the time, inhabit it.

The same is true as to parts of some of our cities, in which a plan of house-to-house sanitary inspection and record has been adopted. The watchfulness which prevents evils and which provides an officer who counsels and advises as to sanitary matters is much more valuable than the old plan which always waited for a nuisance to occur and then created prolonged disturbance in its removal. That is always a great advance, when any community passes from the stage of complaint over nuisances to that in which it is definitely and efficiently organized for their prevention. There will not soon be the time when great evils can not be found. But he is a superficial observer who has not noted some localities, and some persons in almost every locality, who have passed the stage of doubtful disputation, and who feel sure that many an evil can be prevented, that better health can be maintained and more lives lengthened. Even the commotions and agitations which sometimes occur over great public improvements, and their temporary delay, mark progress. The fact that most of our cities are not willing to rest under the odium of neglect shows that the question is one which involves the growth no less than the health of a city. Townships, too, have their losses from defective drainage, or from villages in which, too often, the condition of some street is no better than that of a crowded city.

No doubt the fear of cholera has had some influence in favor of the greater activity of local Boards. But there are other evidences that there is a growing conviction of the feasibility of health administration. We have now no reason to doubt that the future will show a continuous progress in the State, in all that relates to health and care. While there will be local delays or failures, there will not be any weakening of conviction as to the need of skilled oversight of the public health, and reasonable expenditure for its preservation.

The report of Vital Statistics shows the following record for the year ending July 1st, 1885:

Marriages, 8,989; births, 24,077; deaths, 23,807.

DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE.

The proper disposal to be made of the cast-off organic materials of persons and households must ever continue to be an inquiry having the most essential relations to personal and to public health. If it were stated as an axiom that all decayable or putrescible material should be disposed of so that it cannot, in any way, get into our food or our drinking-water, the principle would not be disputed; yet, in actual life, methods are constantly adopted which hazard the purity, both of the food and of the water-supply.

If we go still further, and say that these materials should be so disposed of as not to infiltrate the air beyond its power of rapid neutralization or removal, this, too, would be admitted; yet, in fact, too often the air is so laden with noxious matters as to be polluted to a degree not consistent with general health. Effort must constantly be made, both by structural arrangements and administrative care, to so dispose of all decayable matter as that it shall not be a menace to the public health. We claim that this is possible to a degree not fully realized, and that, even in the artificial conditions of crowded city life, it is attainable, and has sometimes been attained. Such a result can only be secured where the needs are fully recognized and provision made therefor. What now needs most to be impressed upon the population, and epecially upon organized authorities, is, that the thing is necessary to be done, and that the methods for doing are known. Each year witnesses improvements in the details of method and accuracy in the construction and administration of public works. While there are still various discussions as to dry methods, utilization and water-carriage, one who notes what is actually done will find that water-carriage methods are adopted in all cities of a present or prospective population of over 30,000 inhabitants, and that some form of it is practically used in many smaller towns. This results, not from any fashion, but because sanitary engineers and authorities are so agreed that fecal material and the fouled water of households should be carried away from dwellings while in a fresh state, and that the easiest and cheapest mode of carriage is through pipes, and by water. The chief questions are as to which is the most effective and economical method of disposal of the sewage-water.

Four methods are prominent, any one of which can be made effective and the choice of which depends, often, upon locality. Where