Preventive medicine in the City of New York : the address in public medicine delivered at the 65th Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, in Montreal, Canada, September, 1897 / by Hermann M. Biggs.

  • Biggs, Hermann M. (Hermann Michael), 1859-1923.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preventive medicine in the City of New York : the address in public medicine delivered at the 65th Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, in Montreal, Canada, September, 1897 / by Hermann M. Biggs. 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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    diseases, in England, testify in no uncertain language to the value of English sanitary methods and the efficiency of their execution. When we remember that never before in the world’s history have there been 30,000,000 people living within 50,000 square miles, as is the case in England, and that more than 20,000,000 of this population reside in towns, often crowded, we appreciate more fully the remarkable healthfulness of the England of to-day and the extraordinary success of English sanitation, as of English methods in all the practical affairs of life. The fact should be strongly emphasized that the advances in preventive medicine in Great Britain, as shown by the mortality tables for nearly half a century, have preceded those in every other country, and I doubt not that the influence of the British Medical Association has been no small factor in contributing to the high standard of tire public health. In view of these consid- erations, it is natural that a foreigner should hesitate to address this Association on questions connected with public medicine. I must further ask your indulgence in having devoted the greater part of this address to the study and description of pro- cedures and methods, rather than, as is generally the custom, to the consideration of some one of the broader questions in public medicine. This course has been adopted because, in my judg- ment, such a discussion will be of greater value and interest than the consideration of any general topic, which latter could furnish little specific information as to the conditions and methods of sanitary work in the United States. It seems necessary, in order that you may have an intelligent conception of the conditions under which sanitary work in the United States is carried on, that I should first point out, in a general way, how they differ from those in Great Britain. It should be noted particularly that in the United States there is no Uational Board of Health, and there are no national regula- tions of general application. In each of the several States of the Union the sanitary administration is solely under the control of the State authorities. The State Boards of Health are energetic and progressive in many of the States, but in some there is no sanitary work of importance done. It necessarily follows that throughout the United States there is great lack of uniformity in regulations and methods and in