PROGRAMME.

1. Convention called to order at 1:30 P. M. sharp.

2. Invocation, by Rev. ELBERT R. DILLE.

3. Address of Welcome, by Hon. ADOLPH SUTRO, Mayor of San Francisco.

4. Response, by Dr. C. A. RUGGLES, retiring President.

5. Election of officers-President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Committee on Publication-for ensuing year.

6. Address of President-elect.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

7. "Street Sanitation." Dr. W. F. McNUTT.

8. "The Hospital at Home." Dr. SAMUEL O. L. POTTER.

9. "Better Instruction in Physiology and Hygiene in Our Public Schools." Dr. S. S. HERRICK.

10. "Purification of Drinking Water, Chemically and Microscopically Considered." Professors A. A. CUNNINGHAM and THOMAS BOWHILL. 11. “California, and Tuberculosis." Dr. D. A. HODGHEAD.

12. "The Ideal City from a Sanitary Standpoint." Dr. W. T. BURRES. 13. "Tuberculosis and its Communicability to Man." Dr. C. B. ORVIS.

EVENING SESSION.

14. "Notes on the Hygienic Condition of School Buildings, and Practical Hints on the Management of School Children." Dr. WILLIAM A. EDWARDS and Dr. LELAND E. COFER.

15. "The Role of the Veterinarian in Human Prophylactic Medicine." Dr. F. A. NEIF.

16. "Dairy and Milk Inspection." Dr. GEORGE E. CHARLES.

17. "The Prevention of Infectious Diseases of the Eye." Dr. W. F. SOUTHARD.

18. "The Check-Rein; Its Uses and Abuses." Dr. C. L. BARD.

19. "Important Facts and Practical Difficulties Encountered in Enforcing Sanitary Regulations." Dr. GEORGE W. DAVIS.

CALIFORNIA STATE SANITARY CONVENTION.

MONDAY, April 15, 1895.

DR. C. A. RUGGLES, President: Ladies and Gentlemen, you will now please come to order. It affords me great pleasure to introduce to you a gentleman whom most of you know personally, and many of you by reputation, and all will be glad to hear the words of welcome from his Honor, the Mayor of San Francisco, Adolph Sutro. I now have the pleasure of introducing him to you.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

By MAYOR ADOLPH SUTRO, of San Francisco.

Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to welcome you, the members of the State Sanitary Convention, to your annual meeting in the City of San Francisco. Science has added much to our knowledge of sanitary measures, and, above all things, the microscope has revealed to us a formerly unknown world. When the microscope was first invented, about a century and a half ago, an English writer gave in a few lines the gist of all bacteriological science when he said:

"Fleas have little fleas who always try to bite them,

And these again have smaller ones, and so ad infinitum."

That disease is largely due to microbes has been abundantly proven, and when the cause of disease is once clearly established, the remedy will not be far off.

Since the invention of railroad facilities, cities have grown to extraordinary proportions, and the human family gathers together from all parts of the country. Men and women want to live at the metropolis and take advantage of the superior attractions and facilities for knowledge, amusement, and comfort. Most important, then, does it become. to provide for cities sanitary conditions as nearly approaching perfection as it may be possible.

The first question we usually ask in a new place is, "What sort of a climate have you?" We in California can boast of the best, and to a large extent the prevailing winds carry off deleterious influences, and all we have to do is to provide a proper sewer system, of which, unfortunately, the citizens of San Francisco cannot boast. But let us hope that in the near future a proper system is in store for us.

The next question to be asked is, "What sort of drinking water have you?" Of that we cannot boast, either. In the grand mountains of the Sierra Nevada we have a treasure stored up-a priceless treasure of pure, limpid drinking water that is gathered in the high valleys from the

melting snows-a treasure which we carelessly allow to escape down the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers into the ocean, while we continue to drink contaminated water filled with bacteria. Is this our boasted intelligence? This city could be supplied with pure water at less cost than we now pay for the impure, and at the same time confer a similar boon on all the coming generation. It is left for you, gentlemen, to express a strong opinion on this subject.

The members of the Board of Health of a large city hold a post of great responsibility. Good sewerage, pure water, pure milk, and pure food come under their care, and for the good health of the citizens they are mainly responsible.

In the multitude of counsel there is wisdom, and I welcome the tendency of the age to hold congresses, where ideas are enlarged, new thoughts developed, and where a fraternity is established amongst men of the same calling.

Again, gentlemen, let me welcome you here in San Francisco.

THE CHAIRMAN: We have listened attentively and with pleasure to the words of welcome that have been uttered by the representative of this great city by the sea, this great metropolis of the Pacific Coast, and I thank you, sir, in the name of the State Board of Health, and of the Third Sanitary Convention here assembled, for those kind words of welcome and the spirit which dictated them. We, as medical men, of course, are engaged in the healing art. which is a high, holy, and noble calling. are engaged in a calling equally as high, noble-that of the prevention of disease. of the gentlemen here assembled, I again welcome that you have uttered.

Our province is to cure disease, But we also, as sanitarians, equally as holy, equally as And now, sir, in the name thank you for the words of

ELECTION OF OFFICERS.

THE CHAIRMAN: The next business in order now, gentlemen, will be the election of officers for the ensuing year. The first will be the election of the President. Will you please nominate?

DR. BARD: It gives me great pleasure to place in nomination the name of Dr. C. W. Nutting, of Siskiyou County.

WINSLOW ANDERSON: Mr. President, I desire to second the nomination of my old friend, Dr. Nutting, as a gentleman who has served long and faithfully on the State Board of Health; a gentleman who is most eminently fitted for the position of President of the Sanitary Convention. I second the nomination of Dr. Nutting.

(Nominations closed, and the Secretary was instructed to cast the ballot of the convention in favor of Dr. Nutting.)

THE CHAIRMAN: The next thing in order is the nomination of VicePresident.

DR. J. R. LAINE: I desire to place in nomination a gentleman from the opposite direction. We have now elected for President a gentleman from the northern portion of the State. I want to nominate for VicePresident a gentleman from the southern, or near the southern, portion of the State; a gentleman well known to you all, who thinks it of enough

importance to come here and contribute annually. The gentleman I wish to nominate is Dr. C. L. Bard, of Ventura.

(Nominations closed, and the Secretary requested to cast the ballot of the convention in favor of Dr. C. L. Bard.)

THE CHAIRMAN: Nominations for Second Vice-President are now in order.

DR. J. H. CAROTHERS: One gentleman has seen fit to say that one of the officers is from the far north and the other is from the sunny south. I wish to place in nomination a gentleman from the central portion of the State. I therefore nominate Dr. J. C. McLean, of Alameda.

(Nominations closed, and the Secretary was instructed to cast the ballot of the convention in favor of Dr. J. C. McLean.)

(Dr. Winslow Anderson was placed in nomination for Secretary, and unanimously elected.)

(The retiring President, Dr. C. A. Ruggles, read the following address :)

ADDRESS OF DR. C. A. RUGGLES, RETIRING PRESIDENT.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Sanitary Convention: It has become an established custom for the retiring President to address the convention upon his leaving the chair. In accordance with that custom I wish to call your attention to a few remarks of a retrospective nature: In the name of the State Board of Health I wish to congratulate you upon the almost complete exemption of our State from the invasion of any infectious and contagious disease during the year past. Much cause for anxiety has pervaded the minds of our sanitary brethren in the East on account of the prevalence of smallpox. But with the exception of a few cases in Modoc County, which were easily controlled and speedily stamped out by the local health authorities, we have been fortunately exempt.

La grippe has been quite prevalent and very fatal among elderly persons during the past year.

At the time when we were preparing for an expected invasion of Asiatic cholera the State Board of Health advised all local boards to cause much diligence to be exercised in having their several respective localities made clean. Fortunately we were spared from such a call from so unwelcome a visitor. But all sanitary reports to the State Board showed a very positive and well-marked decrease in the number and the mortality of diphtheria cases, encouraging us to continue in advising as perfect a system of cleanliness as is possible. In this connection, while I have no desire or intention to speak as to the curative properties of any remedy, I am constrained to remark that the literature of the day justifies the statement that in diphtheritic anti-toxine we have a prophylatic agent that is well worthy your serious consideration.

I am glad to notice a very great advancement in public sentiment as to sanitation. The people are beginning to inquire as to the prevention of disease, as well as to its cure. Much interest is being manifested in the subject of sewerage. Cities and large towns are studying the best methods of protecting their water supply from the percolation of pathogenic germs, and are fast arriving at the conclusion that altogether too intimate relations are existing between the well and the cesspool

and the privy vault, and from us they should receive all possible encouragement to continue in their good work. The efforts of sanitarians in general, and our local health officers in particular, have been happily rewarded in their endeavors to instruct the public mind, producing a more perfect understanding as to the communicability of disease and the necessity of certain preventive and restrictive measures, causing a pleasant and graceful submission to quarantine, isolation, and other sanitary methods, readily acceding to temporary personal inconvenience for the good of the public. At the commencement of my remarks I stated that I should confine myself to thoughts entirely of a retrospective nature, but I trust I may be excused for my deviation from what had been to what ought to be, done.

The great importance of the subject will justify my action. I allude to the milk question, one of such moment as to demand our most serious attention. Sanitary statistics show us that 60 per cent of hand-fed babies in our cities and large towns perish before they are five years old. That the mortality from nutritional diseases, directly or indirectly, during the first year comprises nearly 90 per cent of the whole. My firm impression and belief is that this premature, and in many instances unjustifiable, weaning of babies, is too fashionable and cannot be too harshly condemned, as it exposes the little innocents to all the dangers of contaminated milk, or to many of the not less dangerous artificial foods. There is no doubt that the logical sequence to be deduced from these premises is that a very large part of the mortality in cities and large towns is traceable to cow's milk as a cause. The number of diseases known to be transmissible by milk have multiplied with our increasing knowledge of pathology. The formerly much used terms, intestinal catarrh, summer complaint, cholera infantum, marasmus, teething diarrhoea, and a host of other vague designations may now be spoken of as acute or sub-acute milk infection, referring by these terms to the effects of the numerous poisonous products of the bacteria found in milk. Taking into serious consideration the great importance of the question, the State Board of Health, as an advisory body, has concluded to recommend to all local health boards to procure the formation of city or town ordinances which will cause all cows producing milk sold in said cities and towns to be inspected as to their health and to their proper sanitary surroundings, an order of things now in use in Alameda. Scarlet fever, which in former years has been so great a terror both on account of its fatality and its sequelæ, has been unusually light, and our local health officers are entitled to much credit for their thorough manner of isolation and restriction, rightly believing that though it was light and scarcely worthy of so much notice, they were obliged to adopt the same quarantine regulations, as a mild case was accompanied by the capability of producing a very severe one. At the Sanitary Convention at San José last year the subject tuberculosis monopolized most of the time. Much was said, and was well said, as is evidenced by the fact that the printed proceedings of that meeting have been in great demand by our Eastern co-laborers. While there was some difference of opinion as to some of the restrictive measures advocated, there was great unanimity as to the necessity of the public being better instructed as to the communicability of the disease and its prevention. But with all that has been said, and the awful object-lesson daily presented, it is something past understanding why the state of general apathy and