The relations of the State Board of Health of Florida and of your executive Officer with the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service under Dr. Wyman's administration and management has been most cordial and co-operative. Attentive to all requests and considerate of every recommendation made in behalf of maritime. medical supervision in Florida, or for aid in prevalence of diseases whose spread or introduction from without the state embarrassed the Florida health authorities, the State Health Officer desires to lay this tribute of grateful remembrance and thankful appreciation on the bier of him whom he had the pleasure of knowing well in life and cherishing as a friend. DR. WARREN E. ANDERSON, DR. R. C. WHITE AND DR. J. FRANK CURTIS During the past year, and coming closer home, from our own ranks and from our own official family, three have been summoned to the Great Beyond. They, too, died in harness, two in the noonday of life when the sun is at its meridian height and the other at the closing of the day when the shadows lengthen and darkness comes on. Dr. Warren E. Anderson, formerly a member of the State Board of Health, and the representative of the Board for Escambia county, died February 1st, 1912, after weeks of agony and physical suffering, but until pain and disease clouded his brain, he never lost interest in or anxiety for the affairs of life which he in his official capacity was especially charged to supervise. A manly man, a broad minded man, a man charitable in affairs of the heart as well as purse, a man whose intellect was ever acute in the calls of humanity and in everything tending to the betterment of the community in which he lived; a man of firm conviction of duty and of right, who could not be swerved by popular clamor of disapproval when he felt his right, nor coaxed from the beaten path of duty by the plaudits of loving and devoted friends. The state has lost a valuable citizen, the State Board of Health an ardent, enthusiastic helper in the vineyard of sanitary development, and the writer a sincere, personal friend. A friend of whom it is well said Who heart-whole, pure in faith, once written friend, The memory of that affection, loyal friendship and conscientious assistant who gave his thought and defence freely when needed, will remain in the heart of him who pens these lines, cherished and valued until he too shall sleep that peaceful sleep which knows no waking here, for "Tis sweet as year by year we lose Friends out of sight, in faith to muse On the 14th of February, 1912, Dr. R. C. White, Acting Assistant Surgeon in the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, Quarantine Physician at Santa Rosa Quarantine Station, near Pensacola, passed from earth and a long life of great activity in public health matters, both for the State of Florida and the United States. Although at an advanced age, he was, up to a few months of his death, vigorous and energetic in the discharge of the duties of the position held under the Government, personally attending to the smallest detail of quarantine work. Conscientious and thorough to the minutest items of management, he was well known to ship masters all over the world because of this peculiarity of temperament and character, and for quarantine discipline he was perhaps better known than any other quarantine official in this country. Strong in his friendships for those whose opinions he respected, he was nevertheless equally as relentless against others whom he thought sought to endanger the public health by evading certain requirements of quarantine management which he considered essential for the protection of public health. After a long and useful life spent in his Country's service, his friends and family can well speak of him and of his memory, as "Well done, good and faithful servant.” RECOMMENDATIONS From the foregoing text it is easily perceived what should be the nature of recommendations submitted at this annual meeting, looking to the betterment of the health of the people of the state in the future, for the consideration of yourself and of your colleagues. It is recommended: First, that the Board set its seal of disapproval on the future and further use of the word quarantine as applied to the spread or suppression of communicable diseases. In this enlightened age quarantine means absolutely nothing in the manner or way of management of disease. In the dim and misty past, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was the custom to hold vessels-and the word was then used principally in connection with maritime supervision and detention of shipping supposedly infected with contagious disease for forty days, because it was held in those days that the contagion of disease would not live longer than that period. Nothing was then done except to hold the vessel and passengers for that length of time, at the expiration of which both the vessel and passengers were set free. In the light of recent scientific investigation we know that detention plays but a minor part in the suppression of disease or the prevention of its spread. Take yellow fever for instance-a disease nearly extinct on the Western Hemisphere-the precautions against spread and transmission are directed not so much against the sick individual as to a destruction of the transmitter of the infection, and to prevent the sick individual, by proper and effectual screening during the first three days of illness, furnishing the poison to the mosquito to be in turn metamorphosed into something which we only know as a filterable virus and when subsequently injected into a non-immune person will produce an attack of yellow fever. Under a mosquito net and in a mosquito-proof screened room, a yellow fever patient need not be held for forty days—quarantined; in fact, need not be withheld from the public after the first five days of illness. Has holding smallpox patients for forty days ever controlled or prevented smallpox from spreading? Quarantining, so-called. means placing of guards to inhibit patients from leaving homes and houses. The experience of the Executive Office has been that guards have been in the past, generally incompetent, and in several instances in the early days of the Board's management of smallpox. where this practice was resorted to, additional guards had to be employed to watch the initial guard placed over the smallpox patient. The practice is costly and avails nothing in the way of protection to the public, because a smallpox patient, if, only slightly ill, wishes to leave the house, he can do so at pleasure, for the guard would have no authority to shoot and thus commit murder, and everyone knows no attempt to restrain by physical force would be exercised for a guard will not grasp or hold a person covered with the sores and scabs of smallpox. What folly, what nonsense, to rely upon such broken reeds for protection! What has been said about the employment of so-called quarantine in smallpox and yellow fever, can be applied to the management of the other communicable disorders with equal significance and verity. Therefore, let the guard be excluded from the vocabulary of preventive measures which the State Board of Health of Florida adopts to prevent and control the spread of dangerous diseases communicable through a special germ or parasite. Second, that the indigent of the state may be afforded a protection against typhoid fever, and to this end and to accomplish this worthy object, the Executive Officer to be authorized to furnish free of charge anti-typhoid vaccine to those citizens of the state who may apply for the same, in the same manner as the Jenner vaccine is now distributed. Third. In order that the State Board of Health may obtain a comprehensive idea of the area of malarial infection in the state, and thus be better provided with information which can be used to the advantage of the people in an educational campaign against this disease, it is recommended that the State Health Officer be authorized to organize a corps of workers who shall prosecute this endeavor on the part of the Board to improve the physical welfare of the citizens of the state. It is believed that with malarial fever and hookworm disease reduced to a minimum in Florida, the vigor of the people will increase and the mental strength and intellectual potency of the citizenship of the state will be so markedly increased that, aside from the lessening of sickness and physical discomfort, the economic side of the question will be so apparent in enhanced healthfulness of the state as a whole that the cost of carrying on this investigation will be returned to the people many times over. Fourth. In addition to the above recommendations which are all important in the eyes of the State Health Officer, there is yet another which deserves the serious thought and consideration of the Board at this time. Reference is made to medical inspection of schools. It is believed, that acting with the State Educational Department, the State Board of Healh should authorize the State Health Officer to inspect the schools in the state, with particular reference to construction of buildings and accessories needed for health and comfort; and to likewise give attention to the pupils with a view of determining the physical condition of each; whether defective in hearing or seeing, abnormal in development, infected with tuberculosis, hookworm disease or malaria; and then to submit, through the principal of the school, to the school board of the county, such recommendations as will correct faulty construction of buildings, or a lack of as well as improperly contrived privy facilities for the sexes. Then, in the same manner and through the same channels, to inform the parents of physical defects of the child, with advice for correction. It is believed that the parents and patrons of the schools in the state will appreciate this effort on the part of the Board to initiate measures which will tend to increase the physical and mental vigor of the growing child, and to inhibit conditions in early life, which, if not controlled or an attempt made to do so, probably afterward will cause distress and perhaps permanent invalidism later on in life. Respectfully submitted, JOSEPH Y. PORTER. |