had afterward developed yellow fever, the latter testifying that he had found it equally efficacious.

The concluding papers of the morning session were by Dr. Juan Brenna, Zacatecaz, Mexico, on "The Influence of Forests on the Public Health," and a paper by Prof. John T. Smock, State Geologist of New Jersey, on "The Relations of Forests to the Public Health." The last-named paper was read by title only and will be printed in the published proceedings of the association.

Afternoon Session.

The first part of the afternoon programme was the address by Prof. W. H. WELCH, Johns Hopkins University, on "The Relation of the Laboratory to the Public Health."

The public laboratory, he said, was a purely modern creation, and was, in fact, the creation of this country. With the exception of anatomical laboratories, he said, there was no public laboratories before the present century. The first chemical laboratory was founded at Eaton in 1820 and a number of others were opened shortly afterward. The more recent laboratories are purely hygienic. The first hygienic laboratory was founded in Munich in 1878. All departments were represented and the great problems such as garbage, water supply, epidemics, etc., were taken up and studied and the cities had been inestimably helped. A great impulse came from the discoveries in bacteriology, and hygienic laboratories were rapidly organized all over Germany and all over the world. The epidemics have been beneficial to the human race, as they have brought before the people in a forceful way the needs of precaution and the value of public laboratories.

Laboratories connected with State boards of health, with colleges and especially with municipal boards of health have been. springing up all over the country and are found to be of great assistance to physicians in diagnosing diseases. In these laboratories diphtheria is studied and the proper methods of administering anti-toxin are discovered by experiment. The diagnosis of tuberculosis and of typhoid and malarial fevers can be made with great exactness. Typhoid fever is preventable and if the laboratories were made more open to the general practitioners that disease would be discovered in the very earliest stages. Preventive measures should be taken at the first onset of the disease.

The laboratories have introduced more exacting and better methods in the boards of health and have caused younger and more

active men to become interested in the work, and in general the tone of the boards has been improved.

The meeting of the bacteriologists this year was a somewhat unusual occurrence, but Mr. Welch stated that he hoped that the meetings would be continued and that the laboratory committee or whatever it might be called should be considered a part of the association.

Prof. Welch was followed by a paper on "Educational Institutions in Relation to Expert and Commercial Work," by Mrs. ELLEN H. RICHARDS, Boston.

It was the little talk by Dr. Wyatt Johnston, bacteriologist to the Provincial Board of Health of Quebec, however, that called out the most discussion. Dr. Johnston gave some of his personal experiences in disinfecting. The burden of the discussion turned on the best means of disinfecting by means of formaldehyde gas; the proper temperature, moisture and the most efficient apparatus. The discussion was participated in by Dr. C. P. Wilkinson, New Orleans; Dr. A. Ravold, St. Louis; Dr. E. K. Sprague, U. S. Marine Hospital Corps; Dr. A. Gehrman, Chicago; Dr. J. N. Hurty, Indianapolis; Prof. F. C. Robinson, Brunswick, Me.; Dr. Frank Warner and Dr. E. G. Horton, Columbus; Dr. Crosby Gray, Pittsburg; Dr. E. G. Hill, Boston; Dr. H. B. Horlbeck, Charleston, S. C.; Dr. S. H. Durgin, Boston; Dr. F. F. Westbrook, Minneapolis, and others.

Evening Session-Welcome from City and State.

The church was comfortably filled and much interest was taken in the proceedings. The audience was made up of about equal numbers of delegates to the convention and residents of Minneapolis who are deeply interested in sanitary matters, prominent men and women being there in large numbers.

General attention was attracted to the Mexican delegates to the convention, who entered late and were escorted to eligible seats. Dr. R. O. Beard presided. He opened the proceedings by introducing Rev. H. M. Simmons, pastor of the church, who made a short prayer, in which he called upon the Divine Spirit to cooperate with the American Public Health Association in making better and purer the world.

Gov. Lind was to have extended the welcome to the delegates on behalf of the State, but at the last minute he was called out of the city, and so his place was taken by Dr. R. G. Smith, St. Paul,

who delivered a masterly address. In the course of his remarks he said he hoped the convention would pay particular attention to the Mississippi River water, over which there had been considerable discussion of late. In closing his address the doctor took a sly rap at the Christian Scientists, without specially mentioning them.

"There are too many persons," said the doctor, "who go to the Lord when they are ill, and the consequence is they are soon gathered in to their fathers and other persons are exposed to disease. If such persons would only go to the Lord and a physician at the same time they would stand a better chance of living and less contagion would be spread."

The doctor extended a particularly warm welcome to the delegates from Mexico and Canada, telling the latter that as the sad news came in of defeat of British arms in the Transvaal the Americans realized more than ever that the Englishman and the Canadians and the Americans were one.

Mayor JAMES GRAY, after telling the delegates how glad the city of Minneapolis was to see them, said he had always understood that bacteriologists were a remarkably bright lot of men, but he had now learned that this was a mistake. He attended the banquet to the bacteriologists at the Minneapolis club Monday evening, and not one of the speakers had remarked that in Germany the things the doctors studied were called germs, parasites in Paris, and microbes in Ireland.

The mayor, becoming serious, said as a public official he realized how hard it was for the doctors to guard the public health, and gave as an illustration the case of a Minneapolis woman, who, having been saved from the smallpox at the expense of the city, became angry and wanted to sue the municipality for the value of her clothing that had been destroyed upon the order of the board of health. Until there was a higher education on the part of the people, said the mayor, there is urgent need of such bodies as the American Public Health Association.

Dr. H. B. Sweetzer, president of the Hennepin County Medical Society, welcomed the delegates on behalf of the medical men of the city, and paid a high tribute to the work of the association.

President Cyrus Northrop, of the State University, made a few remarks of a humorous nature, and then came the annual address of Dr. HENRY MITCHELL, president of the Association:

A Review of Sanitary Progress.

He stated that public interest in all questions relating to the development of a working system for carrying into effect the rapidly unfolding truths of sanitary science had been one of the most prominent features of the period which had elapsed since the association was organized. During this period had occurred nearly all of the substantial improvements in municipal sanitary administration which at present stood engrafted upon our system of government. He referred in general terms to recent sanitary progress, and spoke more specifically concerning a few of the details relating to the prevention of disease, including sanitary legislation, education of sanitary officers, decrease of infant mortality, vaccination, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, adulteration of foods, and local, State, and national sanitary administration. During the twenty-seven years which had passed since the organization of the association, legislation designed to protect and promote the public health had been obtained in almost all of the States within the territory represented in the membership, and efforts were now being made to secure a greater degree of uniformity in these enactments, and in the methods to be pursued in their enforcement, at least so far as they were related to interstate questions. The hygienic control of milk supplies had assumed a better working basis in numerous localities, and the popular demand for clean milk was beginning to meet with response from a few of the more progressive dairymen. The history of the morbidity in the military camps of the United States during the recent war with Spain had demonstrated anew the truism that cleanliness of water and food was an indispensable condition to health, and typhoid fever by its prevalence in these camps had further justified its selection as a typical illustration of the value to the public health of a rigid application of the principles of hygiene. The reduction of the death rate in typhoid fever had been chiefly effected by the improved sanitary conditions in towns, and the relations formerly existing between urban and rural districts were now reversed, the proportion of cases of typhoid occurring in scantily populated regions being much larger than in towns. Further study of the methods by which the spread of tuberculosis may be restricted had also engaged much of the attention of local sanitary authorities during the past year, but no general agreement had yet been reached concerning the course to be pursued for the prevention of this disease. Conservative recommendations for checking the prevalence of tu

berculosis included the inspection of all bovine animals, meat, dairy products, and dairy premises; the destruction of diseased animals, and the prohibition of the sale of diseased meat and milk; exclusion of diseased persons from markets, dairies, and other premises where food was prepared or sold; frequent and regular disinfection of public conveyances and places of public assembly; disinfection of all infected apartments after death or the removal of patients. Dr. Mitchell then dwelt upon the necessity for establishing in the United States a national department of public health, saying that its importance had been strengthened by recent events, the addition of tropical possessions having added new responsibilities to those already borne by the general government, requiring investigations concerning the distribution and character of preventable diseases occurring throughout the entire territory occupied by the nation.

Second Day-Morning Session.

CAUSE AND PREVENTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

Dr. PETER H. BRYCE, of Toronto, chairman, presented "Report of the Committee on the Cause and Prevention of Infectious Diseases."

He said that the past year had been fruitful in experimental work and discoveries in a field which, if not new, was one which had hitherto received but little attention. So early as 1870 Davaine attributed to flies an important part in the spread of anthrax from dead infected materials to living animals, and in the past five years positive experiments had added to the knowledge of the subject. It had been very well established that flies by sucking the blood of diseased persons could transmit disease. Localized epidemics of dysentery had been caused by flies carrying infection from fecal matter. The essayist referred to Simond's paper, which appeared in the Annales de l'Institut Pasteur, in which was reviewed the origin of the epidemics of the plague observed since 1898 in China and India, based on personal investigations in Tonkin and later in Bombay. In tracing its spread, abundant evidence was adduced to show that while man may be the occasional agent of the transmission of plague, he was only indirectly so; the author then pointed out the role played by rats as the principal source of its propagation. In general he stated that the epidemic of plague