MEMBERS, COMMITTEES, AND OFFICERS OF THE State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity, On Health. Dr. HOSMER, Mr. TALBOT, Dr. DAVIS, Mr. HOADLEY, and Mr. CARTER. On Lunacy. - Dr. HITCHCOCK, Dr. HoSMER, Dr. PARMENTER, and Mrs. LEONARD. On Charities.-Dr. PAKMENTER, Mr. DONNELLY, Mr. HOADLEY, Mr. CARTER, and Mrs. LEONARD. DEPARTMENT OFFICERS. Health Officer; HENRY P. WALCOTT, M.D., Cambridge. Superintendent of In-Door Poor, S. C. WRIGHTINGTON, Fall River. The Offices of the Board are at the State House, Boston. PART FIRST. THE HEALTH LAWS. STATE BOARD. c. 79, § 1. 1. The state board of health, lunacy, and charity shall consist of Public Statutes, nine persons. The present members thereof shall continue to hold their offices during the terms for which they were appointed. Two members of the board shall retire each year, in the order of their appointment, except every fifth year, when one shall retire. The appointments or re-appointments to fill vacancies occurring from expiration of terms of office shall be for five years; and all vacancies which may occur from that cause or otherwise shall be filled by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council. The state board of health, lunacy, and charity was originally established by chap. 291, Acts of 1879. 2. The state board of health, lunacy, and charity shall take cognizance of the interests of health and life among the citizens of the commonwealth. It shall make sanitary investigations and inquiries in respect to the causes of disease, and especially of epidemics and the sources of mortality and the effects of localities, employments, conditions, and circumstances, on the public health; and shall gather such information in respect to those matters as it may deem proper for diffusion among the people. It shall advise the government in regard to the location of any public institutions. The state board of health was originally established by chap. 420, Acts of 1869. Its powers were subsequently enlarged by chap. 167, Acts 1871, and chap. 183, Acts 1878. By chap. 291, Acts 1879, it was abolished, and its powers transferred to the state board of health, lunacy, and charity. 3. If small-pox or any other contagious or infectious disease dangerous to the public health exists, or is likely to exist, in any place within the state, the state board shall investigate the same, and the means of preventing the spread thereof, and shall consult Certain general duties of the health, lunacy, powers and state board of and charity. Public Statutes, c. 80, § 1. Further duties tagious diseases. c. 80, § 2. in case of con Public Statutes, Towns may choose board of health, etc., or selectmen, to act. Public Statutes, c. 80, § 3. City council may appoint such board; or shall itself act. Public Statutes, c. 80, § 4. thereon with the local authorities, and shall have co-ordinate powers as a board of health, in every place, with the board of health or health officer thereof, or with the mayor and aldermen or the selectmen, if no such board or officer exists in such place. TOWN AND CITY BOARDS OF HEALTH. 4. A town, respecting which no provision is made by special law for choosing a board of health, may, at its annual meeting or at a meeting legally warned for the purpose, choose a board of health by ballot, to consist of not less than three nor more than nine persons; or may choose a health officer. If no such board or officer is chosen, the selectmen shall be the board of health. 5. Except where different provision is made by law, the city council of a city may appoint a board of health; may constitute either branch of such council, or a joint or separate committee of their body, a board of health, either for general or special purposes; and may prescribe the manner in which the powers and duties of the board shall be exercised and carried into effect. In default of the appointment of a board with full powers, the city council shall have the powers and perform the duties prescribed to boards of health in towns. Where, by an ordinance of a city, two members of the board of mayor and aldermen, and three members of the common council, were constituted the board of health, and no provision as to the mode of appointment was made by the ordinance, or by the joint rules and orders of the city council, but the orders of each branch provided that all committees should be appointed by the mayor and the president of the common council respectively, it was held that the members of the joint committee, constituted by the ordinance a board of health, were duly appointed by the presiding officers of each branch, and that the board so constituted and appointed was legally organized. Taunton v. Taylor, 116 Mass. 254. Where the city council constitutes the board of health, the power to make regulations as it judges necessary for the public health and safety respecting nuisances, sources of filth, and causes of sickness, may as well be exercised by an ordinance as by any other form of regulation. Commonwealth v. Patch, 97 Mass. 224. In default of the appointment of a board of health, and where the city council constitutes the board of health, an ordinance which prohibits the keeping or maintaining swine within certain districts of the city, under a penalty not exceeding twenty dollars for each offence, is valid as a health regulation. Commonwealth v. Patch, 97 Mass. 221. It is a matter of considerable doubt whether the prohibition of offensive trades is the proper subject of an ordinance or by-law, because that matter is specially provided for by statute, and to prohibit their exercise in any particular locality in a town or city by a by-law or ordinance would interfere with the right of appeal to a jury which the statutes secure. Commonwealth v. Patch, 97 Mass. 223. 6. Every such board of health may appoint a physician to the Board may board, who shall hold his office during its pleasure. 7. Such board shall establish the salary or other compensation of such physician, and shall regulate all fees and charges of persons employed by it in the execution of the health laws and of its own regulations. 8. Present members of boards of health of cities by appointment under chapter one hundred and thirty-three of the statutes of the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, shall continue to hold office during the terms for which they were appointed, unless sooner removed as provided by law. 9. In each city, except Boston, in which a majority of the voters shall have so voted according to law, there shall be a board of health, consisting of the city physician, and two persons, not members of the city council, appointed by the mayor and aldermen. The term of office of the appointed members shall be two years, and one of them shall retire from office on the first Monday of February in each year. If such board is not already in existence, the mayor and aldermen shall in January next after the vote of the city authorizing such board appoint two members, one for one year, and the other for two years; and the board shall enter on its duties on the first Monday of February after such appointment. All vacancies occurring in boards already in existence or in those hereafter constituted shall be filled by the mayor with the approval of the board of aldermen. Each member so appointed shall be subject to removal by the mayor for cause, and shall receive such compensation as the city council may from time to time determine. appoint c. 80, § 5. etc. Present memboards of health 133, to remain Public Statutes, bers of city under St. 1877, in office. c. 80, § 7. Boards of health to be appointed in cities, when. Term of office, removal, etc. Public Statutes, c. 80, § 8. how to be organized. c. 80, § 9. 10. Such boards shall organize annually by the choice of one of their number as chairman; they may also choose a clerk, not a Public Statutes, member of the board, and make such rules and regulations for their own government and for the government of all subordinate officers in their department as they may deem expedient. powers and duties. c. 80, § 10. 11. Such boards may exercise all the powers vested in, and shall perform all the duties prescribed to, city councils or mayors and Public Statutes, aldermen as boards of health, under the statutes and ordinances in force in their respective cities on the seventeenth day of May in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven; and may appoint such subordinate officers, agents, and assistants as they may deem necessary, and may fix their compensation and that of their clerk; but the whole amount of such compensation shall not exceed the sum appropriated therefor by the city council. to make annual reports. Public Statutes, 12. In each city such board of health shall annually, in January, present to the city council a report made up to and including the thirty-first day of the preceding December, and containing a full c. 80, § 11. Boards of health Public Statutes, Cities to vote on acceptance of five preceding sections, when. Public Statutes, c. 80, § 13. In case of epidemic, etc., boards of health may be ap pointed in cities not accepting, etc. Public Statutes, c. 80, § 14. City physician, how appointed, when ex officio a member of board; how removed. and comprehensive statement of its acts during the year, and a review of the sanitary condition of the city; it shall also, when the city council or the standing committee thereof on finance so requires, send to the auditor of accounts an estimate in detail of the appropriations required by its department during the next financial year. 13. Such boards may prepare and enforce in their respective cities such regulations as they may deem necessary for the safety and health of the people, with reference to house drainage and its connection with public sewers, where a public sewer abuts the estate to be drained. 14. If at any time a city has not voted to accept the five preceding sections, or chapter one hundred and thirty-three of the statutes of the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, and fifty voters residing therein present a written request to that effect thirty days prior to any meeting for the election of city officers therein, the mayor and aldermen shall notify and warn the legal voters thereof to vote upon the acceptance of said sections at such election. 15. In case of a severe epidemic, or other danger to the public health, the mayor and aldermen of the city where there is no board of health may, upon the request of one hundred voters residing therein, appoint such a board to act during the emergency, with the powers and duties of a board of health duly appointed under section eight. [Chapter 80, Public Statutes.] 16. In cities where the city physician is ex officio a member of the board of health, he shall be appointed by the mayor, with the approval of the board of aldermen, for a term of three years, sub Public Statutes, ject to removal, for cause, by the same authority. c. 80, § 15. Board of health may appoint agents, etc. Public Statutes, c. 80, § 16. to retain charge of a case, after act 17. The board of health in a city or town may appoint an agent or agents to act for it in cases of emergency, or when it cannot be conveniently assembled; and such agent so appointed shall have all the authority which the board appointing him had; but he shall, within two days, report his action in each case to it for its approval, and shall be directly responsible to it and under its control and direction. An agent appointed to make sanitary inspections may make complaint in cases of violation of any law, ordinance, or by-law relating to the public health in a city or town. 18. The board of health of a city or town shall retain charge of any case arising under the provisions of this chapter in which it Public Statutes, shall have acted, to the exclusion of the overseers of the poor. ing therein. c. 80, § 17. |