A manual for health officers / by J. Scott MacNutt ... with a foreword by William T. Sedgwick.

  • MacNutt, J. Scott (Joseph Scott), 1885-
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A manual for health officers / by J. Scott MacNutt ... with a foreword by William T. Sedgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    42/672 (page 26)
    the board of health assumed to act was not broad enough to give the authority in question. This statute, reads the opinion, does not give the board power to make regu- lations as to all matters affecting the public health. . . Milk kept in a vessel, as this was kept by the defendant, was not a ' nuisance, source of filth, or cause of sickness,' which gave the board of health jurisdiction to take any action or make any regulation under the [statute]. 1 Thus, although the powers conferred by the statute were very general a strict interpretation was placed upon them by the Court. Not many years ago the right of a board of health to dictate such a rule under such general powers would doubtless have gone unquestioned in the courts. Other examples of the critical spirit of legislatures and courts are not far to seek. Laws are much more specific than formerly and more frequently mandatory, rather than merely permissive. The reserve powers of sanitary author- ities formerly much exceeded their duties; now powers and duties come nearer to coinciding. To get things done it is found necessary to define them and assign them defi- nitely to certain authorities. The precise terms and wide scope of the state and federal pure food laws are an instance in point. If the problem is quantitative it is becoming more common to establish exact legal standards, both to facilitate administration and to limit the exercise of authority. Courts now call for expert testimony and discuss fine quantitative points, as in the well-known Chicago Drainage Canal case, in which the question was 1 Com. v. Drew, Opinion dated April 4, 1911, quoted in Tlie Banker and Tradesman, Boston, vol. 43, no. 16, p. 921; cf. Jour. Am. Pub. Health Assn., 1911, vol. I, no. 6, p. 466; also discussion by Jordan, Am. Jour. Pub. Health, 1912, vol. II, no. 2. A similar decision was later handed down by the Superior Criminal Court of Massachusetts in regard to a rule requiring that fruit exposed for sale be protected from contamination by dust. To obviate the barrier raised by the dip milk decision, a statute has since (in 1912) been adopted by the Massachusetts Legislature.