LEGAL. The following correspondence explains itself : STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, HON. SMITH MCPHERSON, Attorney-general, Red Oak, Iowa: } DEAR SIR-At Davenport, recently, a magistrate (Finger) decided that the board of health, composed of the mayor and three aldermen, had no legal exist ence. At the trial, a criminal proceeding for disobedience of order of the board of health, the attorney for the defendant (Wm. Lane) read the charter of the city (1851), and moved that the order of the board of health be excluded from the evidence. Are cities under special charter exempt from the action of the Board of Health act (1880)? Yours truly, R. J. FARQUHARSON, Secretary. STATE OF IOWA, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, R. J. FARQUHARSON, M. D., Secretary State Board of Health, Des Moines: Yours truly, S. MCPHERSON, Attorney-general. ADULTERATION OF FOOD. ATALISSA, IOWA, May 10, 1881. DR. R. J. FARQUHARSON, Davenport, Iowa: DEAR SIR-What is your opinion of local boards of health examining into and prohibiting the sale of all adulterated food? Would glucose sugar, and sirup giving sulphuric acid reaction with usual tests, be included with adulterated food? Also, vinegar made with sulphuric acid? Please answer as soon as possible, and oblige, Yours truly, J. S. TURNER, Health Officer. IOWA STATE BOARD OF HLALTH, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, DES MOINES, May 17, 1881. DR. J. S. TURNER, Health Officer, Atalissa, Iowa: DEAR SIR-Yours of the 10th inst. came duly to hand. Local boards of health should examine into all cases of fraudulent or deleterious adulteration of food, which may occur within their jurisdiction, and should report the results of their examinations to the State Board of Health. But in regard to legal prosecution, it would be well to proceed very slowly and cautiously, if at all. The only power to punish for adulteration is derived from section 4036, Code of 1873, the act creating the State Board conferring no additional power. The people must be educated in sanitary matters, and publication of adulterations is oftentimes sufficient for their suppression. But here again, the health officer, or rather the party publishing, if names are used, renders himself open for libel, as recently occurred in Chicago. The presence of a small quantity of a sulphate in sirup, or in glucose, would give a sulphuric acid reaction, without the presence of any free sulphuric acid. Vinegar might give the same reaction, and yet be good vinegar. Perhaps the next legislature may pass a more specific law, accurately defining adulterations; in the meantime it would be well to abstain from legal prosecutions, except, perhaps, in such cases of outrageous and flagrant violations of the law as would render a conviction certain. Yours truly, R. J. FARQUHARSON, Secretary. VITAL STATISTICS. The State Board of Health act has the following title: "An act to establish a State Board of Health in the State of Iowa, to provide for collecting vital statistics, and to assign certain duties to local boards of health, and to punish neglect of duties." SECTION 11. "It shall be the duty of the Board of Health to make a biennial report, through their Secretary or otherwise, in writing, to the Governor of the State, on or before the first (1st) day of December of each year preceding that in which the General Assembly meets; and such report shali include so much of the proceedings of the Boa.d, such information concerning vital statistics, such knowledge respecting diseases, and such instruction on the subject of hygiene as may be thought useful by the Board, for disseminating among the people, with such suggestions as to legislative action as they may deem necessary." These evidently impose upon the Board and its Secretary the duty of collecting, compiling, and publishing the vital statistics of the State. But section 1, chapter 159, laws of 1876, requires all institutions, with a few named exceptions (in which the State Board of Health is not included), to make their reports on or before the first day of November. If the biennial report is to be made on or before November 1st, and is then to be put into the hands of the public printer, it would be impossible to comply with the requirements of section 11 of the Board of Health Act, which prescribes December 1st as the time for the report. Again, the report would be made and in press before it would be presented to, read and considered by the Board, which does not meet until in November. Obviously, either the time of the meeting of the Board must be fixed for an earlier period, say October, or the State Board of Health must be included in the list of exceptions, as is now the case with the Agricultural College and some other State institutions. To make vital statistics worth compiling and publishing it is very evident that a complete and correct registration of the elementsbirths, still-births, marriages and deaths, must be made by the clerks of the courts. Section 3, Board of Health act, should be so amended as to prescribe some penalty for the failure on the part of physicians or midwives to register their names. Again, in the next to final line of section 3, the word "and" should be stricken out, and "or" inserted, so as to read "or at such other times as the Board may direct." If the returns are sent in from the clerks on the 1st of October, it is obvious that many marriages, births and deaths occurring during the month of September will be excluded from the returns, thus rendering the statistics for the year (ending October 1st) imperfect, incorrect, and for compilation valueless, for it is probable that in no two counties in the State would the records include the same amounts of the September events. There need be no hurry on the part of the clerks in forwarding the returns to this office; it is much more important that the returns be correct than that they should be received at an early period. Indeed, as it will always be impossible to compile the returns of the next preceding year in time for the biennial report, it would make no difference if the returns from the clerks were not sent in before the middle of December; that is to say, that the compilation of vital statistics in the reports will always be one year behindhand. In connection with the registration of marriages, I would say that in the form (2) for the "Return of a Marriage to County Clerk," in the corresponding column of the Clerk's Record of Marriages (Form 18D), and in the Clerk's Return of Marriages (Form 5C), that the word "race" is stricken out. In the first place, it is entirely superfluous, as the nationality or race is sufficiently defined by the "place of birth," and the "color," and its presence in the returns leads to many curious efforts of imagination on the part of the persons filling the returns to define the expression "race," according to his peculiar views in regard to the meaning of that term. The following are a few of the changes rung upon that word "race," culled at random from the records: White; "Caucasian" of various kinds, "light," "blonde," "English" (i. e., American), "Irish" of all counties of Iowa; and of all the States in the Union; "Scotch" of various counties and States; "French" do; "Scotch-Irish" do; "Europeans" of all counties and States; "Anglo-Saxon" do; these all being "Americans." Then we have "Americans" born in Germany, Austria, Holland, etc., this being inexplicable, the birthplace in this instance failing to correct the error. The following tables of the births, still-births, marriages and deaths in the State during that portion of the year (ending October 1st, 1880,) embraced by the returns on file in this office, is given for what it is worth, which is not much, except as a sample of what the vital statistics may be when we have full and correct returns. As will be seen by referring to the death columns, where the period in days embraced by the report of death for each county is given, the time embraced in no two counties is the same, and, therefore, all comparison being useless, the compilation of tables was not carried beyond those given. The tables as given show the following by counties: Population: (Census 1880), native, foreign, white, colored, and total. Marriages: Of whites, of blacks, native or where both parties are Americans; foreign, where both parties are foreigners; mixed, where one is native and the other is foreign; unknown, where the nativity of one or other, or both parties is not stated, and total. Deaths: Days embraced in the return,-white, colored and unknown; sex, male, female, and unknown; age-those under five years old, those over five; native, foreign and unknown. Births: White, colored and unknown; sex, male female and unknown; parents, native, foreign, mixed and unknown. Still-births: White, colored and unknown; sex, male, female and unknown. The rate of mortality for each county is calculated, from the period embraced in the record, for one year, as so many deaths per thousand of the living population. |