Proceedings of the quarter-centennial celebration of the establishment of the Michigan State Board of Health : held at Detroit, Michigan, August 9, 1898.
- Michigan. State Board of Health
- Date:
- 1898
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Proceedings of the quarter-centennial celebration of the establishment of the Michigan State Board of Health : held at Detroit, Michigan, August 9, 1898. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![the south, the east and the west to regale and refresh their weary bodies within your borders, ilany of these visitors have in the years gone by remained as permanent citizens. The iState has grown in population, in wealth, in learning, in men of wisdom and distinction until it is the peer of any State in the Union. That this has been possible is due in no small measure to the fact that the State has been wise enough to maintain at its capital this bureau known as the State Board of Health. This Board has collected a Avealth of information concerning the diseases and occui)ations and habits of the people that are inimical to human growth and longevity, and has poured forth each year a steady stream of information for the education and guidance of the people in the ways of health and lengthened days. And all this the Board does Avithout emolument or profit—only the executiA'e force receiving moderate salaries. That the people of the State are alive to their best interests and to the ini])ortance of the good accomjdished is evidenced by the fact that the founder of the Board, who was ai)])ointed its Secretary and executive otiicer at the beginning, has been continued through the quarter century just ended and is still on guard. A striking feature of the Avork of the State Board of Health of Michi- gan is its method of placing in the hands of each citizen the knoAvledge with Avhich he can Avard off disease. By its conventions in cities and tOAvns and CA'en in villages; by its pro- motion of local health organizations; by lectures and institutes; and by innumerable leaflets and circulars and i)amphlets and rej)orts—spread broadcast over the State, its citizens are educated in sanitary matters beyond those of any other commonAvealth Avith Avhich I am familiar. The Board has sent the sanitary schoolmaster abroad in the land— teaching, expounding, illustrating; line upon line, precei)t uj)on pre- cept; here a little and there a little. And his first and most A'aluable assistant is the daily ]>ress—a fact which the astute Secretary of your Board has not been sIoav to appreciate. As a matter of personal and official experience T have found no other one agency capable of affecting so much in sanitary matters as the daily pa])er. Unfortunately we cannot always command its assistance as fully as we Avould like. The absence of the sensational and the spec- tacular in our work limits the space given in the newspaper columns— especially when events of great popular interest are occurring. The effect of this limitation has been so seriously im})ressed upon my mind during the past feAV Aveeks, and the lesson is one of such import- ance from the sanitary standpoint, that I venture to trespass upon your time with its brief recital. Unusually frequent ])ollutions of the Chicago water supply, which, as you know, is drawn from Lake Michigan, finally led to tlie cutting off of the sup])ly from the 230-odd public schools of the city in the fall of 189f). During the winter of that year and well into the summer of 1897, the character of the water supply, the question of filters, the action of the Board of Education and of the Department of Health furnished columns upon columns of matter in the daily press and were thus made the common themes of discussion in every household. Space was freely given to the regular bulletins of the Department announcing the sanitary quality of the water and to warnings against its use unless thoroughly boiled or pro])erly filtered. Careful investigation warrants the belief](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22335213_0043.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
