The State Board of Health and a quarter century of public-health work in Michigan / by Theo. R. MacClure.

  • MacClure (Theodore R.). 1869-
Date:
[1898]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The State Board of Health and a quarter century of public-health work in Michigan / by Theo. R. MacClure. 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.

    11/78 (page 9)
    One of Doctor Baker’s first efforts in this direction was to interest Doctor I. H. Bartholomew of Lansing, his partner in the practice of medicine during the years 1SC6-6S. In 1870 the effort was renewed, but Doctor Bartholomew’s reply then as before was “One man can do nothing”, conveying the idea that it was a hope- less undertaking. However, by persistent effort Doctor Bartholomew did become interested, and thereafter the movement was not confined to “one man, there were “two men”. Probably the move for a State Board of Health would have been less vigorous had it not been that similar action had been taken in Massachusetts. The first report of the Massachusetts Board was made about January, 1S70, and sent to Doctor Baker at Wenona in a package of Massachusetts vital statistics reports; and immediately after the receipt of the report, a bill was framed by him providing for a State Board of Health in Michigan. In June, 1870, the State Medical Society met in Lansing, and Doctor Baker read a paper, and advocated the creation of a State Board. Doctor Bartholomew was elected president of the society, and afterwards appointed Doctor Baker as chair- man of the committee to assist the Secretary of State in the compilation of vital statistics in accordance with the State law. The same law also provided for a similar committee to represent the faculty of the Michigan University. Prof. A. B. Palmer had been appointed that committee, but gave way to Doctor Baker in order that the effort for the proposed State Board might be better subserved. About October, 1870, Doctor Baker came to Lansing to superintend this compilation. Soon after the fall election he had a conference with Senator-elect I. M. Gravath of Lansing, who introduced a bill to create a State Board of Health and made it the main measure in which he was interested during that session. By individual effort with other senators and by speeches, he wrought vigorously for the passage of this proposed legislation. The bill was not favorably reported from the com- mittee to whom it was referred, possibly because one member of that committee was a dealer in drugs and patent medicines, and may have thought the proposed legislation might interfere with his business. Hon. Francis B. Stockbridge was also a member of that committee and was in sympathy with the movement, but said the bill had no chance whatever of passing the house‘of representatives, there- fore it was a waste of effort to try to have it pass the senate. It failed to pass in committee of the whole. Doctor Robert C. Kedzie, Homer O. Hitchcock, E. W. .Tenks, and A. B. Palmer became interested in the effort; the first bill was so drawn as to legislate into office the members of the proposed Board; and the above-mentioned persons with Doctor I. H. Bartholomew and Doctor Henry B. Baker were named as its mem- bers. At the meeting of the State Medical Society, at Kalamazoo, June, 1871, as special committee on vital statistics. Doctor Baker made an extensive report in which he reviewed the unsuccessful effort for a State Board of Health. During the two years that intervened between the sessions of 1871 and 1873, the persons mentioned in the original bill, and a few other persons, wrought assiduously to create public opinion in favor of a State Board of Health. Experi-