HEALTH

NEW HAVEN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

Vol. XLIII, No. 11	November, 1916

This article excerpted from p. 3 of the issue.

Having had the privilege of attending the forty-fourth annual meeting of the American Public Health Association recently held in Cincinnati, Ohio, we are impressed with the renewed zeal and enthusiasm one always feels from meeting so many engaged in teaching and practising hygiene and preventive medicine, and the conviction that the tremendous advances made in these sciences in the last few years are but the beginning of a great work that must be for the benefit of humanity. Aware that the objects and the comprehensiveness of the Association are but little known outside of those engaged in public health work and that many well informed persons have but a vague knowledge of such an Association, we feel that a short history of the organization and a description of its comprehensive works will not be out of place.

Forty-four years ago a few of those interested in sanitation organized the Association, with the object of disseminating among the public a knowledge of the benefits to be derived from more hygienic ways of living, the necessity for more uniform laws, and the mutual advantages to be obtained by a comparison of ideas and the obstacles with which each had to contend. The organization was originally composed of only members from the United States, but from time to time other countries have been admitted, until now the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba are represented.

Space does not permit as full a history as one might wish, consequently but brief mention can be made of the stages of development. Composed, at first, almost exclusively of those representing state and municipal health departments, it has now grown to an organization that embraces in its many activities, sub-organizations or sections whose titles explain their specialties. These sections are the Laboratory Section, composed of bacteriologists and chemists: Public Health Administration, for state and city health officials and the practical workers, Vital Statistics, for statisticians, registrars of vital statistics, and those interested in, the study of the births and deaths of the country; the Sanitary Engineers' Section, a section of great importance in these days when the dangers and difficulties of sewage disposal are just beginning to be understood: the Sociological Section, for those studying human welfare and working for the improvement of social conditions: and the section on Industrial Hygiene, dealing with many problems presented by the relationship between occupations and diseases.

A synopsis of the various subjects considered by the several sections is indicative of the scope of the work of the Association and illustrates the many phases of our aims.

In the section on Public Health Administration, papers were read and discussed on the work of public health officials, municipal and rural health departments, venereal diseases as related to public health, illegal practitioners, infectious diseases, and infant welfare.

In the Laboratory Section nine distinct phases of the milk problem were presented in that number of papers, many authorities discussed water, both chemically and bacteriologically, the contamination, purification, and methods of examining the same, the bacteriology of many infectious diseases and the chemistry' and bacteriology of various foods.

In the section on Vital Statistics, papers on the enforcement of registration laws, the epidemiological study of mortality and morbidity, the value commercially, scientifically and legally of registration records of births and deaths, the registration of mental disorders, and the value of statistics to the public were considered.

The Sociological Section took up the questions of mental hygiene, the relations of the federal government, the state, and municipality to industrial hygiene, health standards and socio-health investigations.

The Sanitary Engineers discussed the pollution and purification of waters, water suppies, the disposal of sewage and other wastes, and the control of waterways.

The Industrial Hygiene section discussed the effect that hours, conditions, industries, air, chemicals, etc., have upon the health of shop workers.

In the general sessions were considered mental hygiene, venereal diseases, alcohol, public health nursing, birth control, the eradication of hay fever, mouth hygiene, and many other subjects.

We have not attempted to give definite titles of the papers, their contents, nor all of the subjects, but such as would impress, one, making, a superficial examination of the program of the meeting. One can understand the great value that must accrue to those privileged to listen to such papers and discussions coming from those eminent in their specialties throughout the American continent.

The Association Journal, issued monthly, publishes these, not only for the benefit of the members of the Association, but any that may be interested, and the Journal is said to be second to no health publication in the whole world.

FRANK W. WRIGHT,
Health Officer.