cer thereof, till the act and the rules and regulations made in pursuance thereof shall have been officially promulgated for at least ten days in the port from which said vessel sailed.

SEC. 4. It shall be the duty of the National Board of Health to obtain information of the sanitary condition of foreign ports and places from which contagious snd infectious diseases are or may be imported. into the United States, and to this end the consular officers of the United States at such ports and places as shall be designated by the National Board of Health shall make to said Board of Health weekly reports of the sanitary condition of the ports and places at which they are respectively stationed, according to such forms as said Board of Health may prescribe; and the Board of Health shall also obtain, through all sources accessible, including State and municipal sanitary authorities throughout the United States, weekly reports of the sanitary condition of ports and places within the United States; and shall prepare, publish, and transmit to the medical officers of the Marine Hospital Service, to collectors of customs, and to State and municipal health officers and au thorities, weekly abstracts of the consular sanitary reports and other pertinent information received by said board; and shall also, as far as it may be able, by means of the voluntary co-operation of State and municipal authorities, of public associations and private persons, procure information relating to the climatic and other conditions affecting the public health; and shall make to the Secretary of the Treasury an annual report of its operations, for transmission to Congress, with such recommendations as it may deem important to the public interests; and said report, if ordered to be printed by Congress, shall be done under the direction of the Board.

SEC. 5. That the National Board of Health shall from time to time issue to the consular officers of the United States and to the medical officers serving at any foreign port, and otherwise make publicly known, the rules and regulations made by it and approved by the President, to be used and complied with by vessels in foreign ports for securing the best sanitary condition of such vessels, their cargoes, passengers, and crews, before their departure for any port in the United States, and in the course of the voyage; and all such other rules and regulations as shall be observed in the inspection of the same on the arrival thereof at any quarantine station at the port of destination, and for the disinfection and isolation of the same, and the treatment of cargo and persons on board, so as to prevent the introduction of cholera, yellow fever, or other contagious or infectious diseases; and it shall not be lawful for any vessel to enter said port to discharge its cargo or land its passengers except upon a certificate of the health officer at such quarantine station, certifying that said rules and regulations have in all respects been observed and complied with, as well on his part as on the part of the said vessel and its master, in respect to the same and to its cargo, passengers, and crew; and the master of every such vessel shall pro

duce and deliver to the collector of customs at said port of entry, together with the other papers of the vessel, the said certificates required to be obtained at the port of departure, and the certificate herein required to be obtained from the health officer at the port of entry.

SEC. 6. That to pay the necessary expenses of placing vessels in proper sanitary condition, to be incurred under the provisions of this act, the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he hereby is, authorized and required to make the necessary rules and regulations fixing the amount of fees to be paid by vessels for such service, and the manner of collecting the same.

SEC. 7. That the President is authorized, when requested by the National Board of Health, and when the same can be done without prejudice to the public service, to detail officers from the several departments of the government, for temporary duty, to act under the direction of said Board, to carry out the provisions of this act; and such officers shall receive no additional compensation except for actual and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of such duties.

SEC. 8. That to meet the expenses to be incurred in carrying out the provisions of this act, the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated, to be disbursed under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury on estimates to be made by the National Board of Health, and to be approved by him. Said National Board of Health shall as often as quarterly make a full statement of its operations and expenditures under this act to the Secretary of the Treasury, who shall report the same to Congress.

SEC. 9. That so much of the act entitled "An act to prevent the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases into the United States," approved April twenty-ninth, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight, as requires consular officers or other representatives of the United States at foreign ports to report the sanitary condition of and the departure of vessels from such ports to the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine Hospital Service; and so much of said act as requires the Surgeon-General of the Marine Hospital Service to frame rules and regula tions, and to execute said act, and to give notice to Federal and State officers of the approach of infected vessels, and furnish said officers with weekly abstracts of consular sanitary reports, and all other acts and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act be, and the same are hereby, repealed.

SEC. 10. This act shall not continue in force for a longer period than four years from the date of its approval.

Approved June 2, 1879.

ANNEX No. 4.

FORM OF INTERNATIONAL BILL OF HEALTH PROPOSED BY THE DELEGATES OF THE UNITED STATES.

I,

atthe port of

(consul, consular agent, or other officer empowered by law to sign), —, do hereby state that the vessel hereinafter named clears from

this port under the following circumstances:

2. Sanitary condition of vessel (before and after reception of cargo, with note of any decayed wood). Note disinfection of vessel,

3. Sanitary condition of cargo,

4. Sanitary condition of crew,

5. Sanitary condition of passengers,

6. Sanitary condition of clothing, food, water, air-space, and ventilation,

PORT.

1. Sanitary condition of port and adjacent country:

a. Prevailing disease (if any),

b. Number of cases of and deaths from yellow fever, Asiatic cholera, plague, small-pox, or typhus fever during the week preceding :

d. Total deaths from all causes during the preceding month,

2. Any circumstances affecting the public health existing in the port of departure to be here stated.

who has person.

I certify that the foregoing statements are made by ally inspected said vessel; that I am satisfied that the said statements are correct; and I do further certify that the said vessel leaves this port bound for the United States.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and the seal of office, at the port this day of 188-, o'clock.

of-
[SEAL.]

Consul.

ANNEX No. 5.

ESSAY ON THE GENERAL ORGANIZATION OF PUBLIC HYGIENE.

[Presented by Mr. EDOUARD SÈVE.]

Dr. Belval, reporter of the Medical Congress of 1875, has divided his work into two parts. The first part contains all the documents which he has been able to collect on the legislation which in the different countries regulates the organization of the administrative service of hygiene. The second part has for a basis the report which he presented to the Medical Congress in 1875; the report, the conclusions of which have been modified in their details and put together in the projet adopted by the Conference, I have the honor of submitting to you, so that it may be presented to the kind and judicious attention of the International Sanitary Conference.

These conclusions have been adopted by men well known in science, who occupy a high rank by their position, by the consideration with which they are looked upon in Europe and in America; they are all of them animated by the same love of good, without any other object in view than the satisfaction of having been, as is the case with the members of the Conference called together by the United States, useful to their countries and to humanity in general.

Dr. Belval says: "The examination of the documents which we have just presented proves in an indisputable manner the necessity of guaranteeing the people against their own imprudence, which is generally known. The cause of public hygiene does not appear to us to need any defense before public opinion, and still less before the different governments whose actions have just proved to us that they comprehend fully its importance."

The first striking point which one comes across in examining these documents about international hygiene is that up to the present, under the name of public hygiene, the only researches made in common by the different governments of Europe were to oppose a barrier in the way of the march of epidemic diseases, and especially of cholera.

This is the principal motive which impelled the French Government to establish sanitary physicians in the towns of the East. It was also

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