First Steps to Meet an

We reproduce in this number of CHARITIES several Appalling Need. most interesting views of the new tents, by means of which the capacity of the Hospital for Consumptives on Blackwell's Island conducted by the Department of Public Charities is to be increased by nearly one hundred beds. We present, also, views of the tents which have been used since the summer of 1901 by consumptive patients at Manhattan State Hospital, East.

A further indication of the attempt in this city to reduce the death-rate from tuberculosis is the announcement by the medical officer of the Board of Health that the Riverside Sanatorium for pulmonary diseases on North Brother Island is open for the reception of patients. This is intended especially for advanced cases, but it is believed that the conditions in the sanatorium will be favorable; and arrangements have been made for friends to visit patients at least three or four times in the week. Agents and visitors of charitable societies in the city are asked to use their influence to induce all persons who are in an advanced stage of the disease to enter a hospital, for the sake of the other members of their families and their neighbors. Every effort should be made to remove as many as possible from crowded tenement-house districts to one or another of the public or private hospitals now provided, although such provision, in spite of the additions just mentioned, will again, in the course of a few weeks prove to be insufficient.

What is needed in New York city is action in the direction of the resolutions adopted by the Board of Aldermen a few weeks ago; that is, the erection of a sanatorium with accommodations sufficient to care for all of those who are willing to accept such care and who can wisely be removed from their homes.

cies which are the more surprising because of his declaration that he has viewed the bill "from all standpoints," and consulted" with those interested in this work."

The governor says the italics being

ours:

"It [the bill] seeks to prevent the erection of such hospitals without the consent of the board of supervisors of the county or the town board of the town in which the hospital is to be erected."

By substituting or for and, the governor has taken away much more than half of the iniquity of the measure. Unfortunately, the act as approved requires the consent of both county and town authorities. Worse, however, follows. The governor says:

"Under existing law municipalities of the first class are not permitted to establish such hospitals outside of their own limits in cities or in incorporated villages or in towns without the consent of the local board of health and the approval of the State Commissioner of Health. This bill substitutes for the state commissioner of health, the local board of supervisors of the county, and for the local board of health the town board, etc." No copy of this bill which we have seen contains any such provision. It does not substitute one set of consents for another, but adds new ones. This act does not repeal earlier provisions of the health law, In the parbut clearly adds others. ticular case cited by the governor the law adds requirements to others already existing, but in other cases, as for example, a hospital of a fraternal order for its own members, or a privately endowed hospital, such as Mr. Phipps has given to Philadelphia, it interposes obstacles where none existed and where none are needed.

Under these circumstances what shall we say of the further assertion in the governor's memorandum that "under these conditions it does not prevent the location within the state of hospitals for the treatment of tuberculosis, and but slightly broadens the protection of town and property interests. In thus making provision for safeguarding these interests, there has been no material change from the existing law, and unnecessary burdens have not been placed upon munici

palities or those who desire to establish such hospitals."

All that we can say is that undue consideration seems to us to have been given to the "property interests" to which the governor refers and none at all to the consumptives, of whom some twenty thousand will die of their disease in the state of New York this year.

"I cannot see," says the governor, "that any great injury will result to the work which the state and individuals have undertaken. On the contrary, I can see very urgent reasons why the property interests and rights of individuals which are safeguarded in this act should receive the thoughtful consideration of the legislature and the executive."

Protest Against

Bedell Bill

The governor was unable to the Goodsell give a hearing on this bill but he was not without ample information concerning the views of the medical profession and charitable agencies. For example we may quote the resolutions adopted at the last regular meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, held May 7. They were presented by Dr. S. A. Knopf, seconded by Dr. A. Jacobi, and unanimously adopted:

Whereas, There has been recently passed by the legislature of the state of New York an act to amend the public health law in relation to the establishment of public sanatoria, hospitals, or camps for the treatment of tuberculosis, which act reads as follows: "A hospital, camp, or other establishment for the treatment of patients suffering from the disease known as pulmonary tuberculosis shall not be established in any town by any person, association, corporation, or municipality, unless the board of supervisors of the county and the town board of the town shall each adopt a resolution authorizing the establishment thereof, and describing the limits of the locality in which the same may be established," and

Whereas, The effect of this bill, if it becomes a law, will make it impossible for any city in the state, or any fraternal order, charitable society, or philanthropic individual, to establish a hospital, camp, or other establishment for the treatment

except under conditions which are practically prohibitive, and

Whereas, By chapter 327 of the laws of 1900, cities of the first class are authorized to erect sanatoria outside of the city limits, such action and the selection of a site to be subject to the approval of the State Board of Health, and by the same law, hospitals and institutions, now, or hereafter established or maintained, are made subject to the approval of the local board of health, and

Whereas, Private property rights are sufficiently protected by general laws, and the process of injunction is open, in case it can be positively shown that unwarranted injury would be inflicted by the establishment of a hospital on a particular site, and the necessity of obtaining the consent of the State Board of Health being an ample guarantee that a site shall not be selected which will threaten or unduly expose the health of any particular neighborhood, and

Whereas, It has been demonstrated in this country and in Europe that properly conducted sanatoria, hospitals, and camps for consumptives are not a danger to the neighborhood, and that such institutions are places where the consumptive poor receive a hygienic education and have the best possible chance to be cured and become again useful citizens and supporters of families, and

Whereas, There is at present a great deficiency of hospital accommodation in New York state for this class of patients, be it

Resolved, That the New York Academy of Medicine deeply deplores the passage of the above bill, and urgently requests his excellency the governor to withhold his signature to the act, which, in case it became a law, would involve the loss of thousands of lives and increase the spread of tuberculosis within the crowded districts of our cities and towns, and would have to be considered an act of the greatest injustice and inhumanity.

The Boston

Following the example set Association for in New York, Montreal, the Relief and Con- Washington, Baltimore, trol of Tuberculosis. "and other cities, an Asso

Tuberculosis has been organized to promote a careful study of conditions regarding tuberculosis in Boston, to educate public opinion as to the causes and prevention of tuberculosis, and to arouse general interest in securing adequate provision for the proper care of tuberculous patients in their homes by means of hospitals and sanatoria.

Interest has been taken in the past in the care of tuberculous patients by the out-patient departments of the various hospitals in Boston, the Boston dispensary, the District Nursing Association, the Associated Charities, and others, but it seemed to those interested that the time had come in Boston to organize an association whose peculiar work shall be to bring before the public the real nature of the disease and the possibilities of its prevention and cure. Standing committees on finance, relief and control, or treatment in the home, hospitals, and sanatoria, and education have been appointed.

There is already in the community a widespread interest in the warfare against tuberculosis, and as soon as the public realizes that an organization exists for carrying on this work, the appeal for funds should receive a generous response. The officers of the new association are, Dr. Edward O. Otis, president; Dr. Arthur K. Stone, vice-president; Miss Alice L. Higgins, secretary, and George S. Mumford, treasurer. The executive committee consists of Rev. F. X. Dolan, Mrs. Mary Morton Kehew, Babson S. Ladd, Dr. James J. Minot, Miss Mary Boyle O'Reilley, and Dr. Charles P. Putnam.

Major H. L. Higginson, Mrs. Roger Wolcott, Bishop Lawrence, Mrs. Paul Thorndike, Prof. Wm. T. Sedgwick, Prof. Henry C. Metcalf, Robert Treat Paine, Jr., Miss Frances R. Morse, Horatio A. Lamb, Miss Marian C. Jackson, Robert Winsor, Miss Elizabeth P. Cordner, Dr. V. Y. Bowditch, and others are interested to make the new association a success.

A "Committee on the PreThe Movement in vention of Consumption" Washington. has been organized by the Associated Charities of Washington. Dr. William C. Woodward, health officer of the District, is chairman of the com

mittee, which embraces fifteen members. These members include representatives of the regular Medical Association, the Association of Homeopathic Physicians, the three daily newspapers of the city, the general medical profession, and the Associated Charities, as well as several influential men of the city.

Public meetings have been held, and two or three popular lectures with stereopticon views have been given.

Reference has already been made in CHARITIES to the fact that this movement grew from the efforts of a colored friendly visitor on behalf of a young colored boy whom the Associated Charities hoped to save from dying of consumption. This boy lived with his mother in one of the crowded hidden alleys of the national capital, and the friendly visitor discussed his case frequently with the conference class of colored volunteers, carried on by the society. As a result of their interest in this one case and their study of the modern knowledge concerning the prevention of consumption, a committee of three colored men was formed representing the colored conference class. This committee without any funds, arranged three lectures in large colored churches and distributed some literature. Their work seemed to grow and to promise such large usefulness that the board of managers of the Associated Charities decided to organize a larger committee to include the three colored men who made the modest beginning of the movement. There has been a good deal of enthusiasm manifested and the chairman of the committee is an active, efficient leader.

Notes of the Week.

Plea for Extradition.-At the annual meeting of the Cleveland Associated Charities, May 15, Superintendent W. R. Seager made a statement that less relief work was done in the city last year than the year before, and at the same time the society was called upon to do more general work. "Our city," he said, "is on the line of through travel between the East and the West, and corresponding societies are learning to use, more and more, our facilities to locate wayfarers, wife deserters, and the like. The fact is that a net

work is now established in the cities of our land which is fast rendering it difficult to shirk such obligations. When wife desertion shall be recognized as extraditable it will be possible to do more toward breaking up that great evil."

Over Half a Million Free Baths.-Five hundred and fifty-three thousand four hundred and one baths are tabulated for the year 1902 in the last quarterly issue of statistics published by the Chicago Municipal Library and Bureau of Statistics. This number was served by the four public baths and two pumping stations. Statistical cleanliness in Chicago is at low ebb in February-30,064 bathers for the month. The increase which sets in with the warm weather more than doubles this total for August -72,618. In addition, 208,539 persons bathed in 1902 at the three free beaches -Twenty-fifth street, Seventy-ninth street, and Oakdale avenue.

In More Senses Than One.-London's underground bakehouses and their need of ventilation are being given an airing by the Public Health Committee of the Paddington Borough Council. It is the opinion that in these places larger allowance of air space should be provided for workers than those prescribed by the factory and workshop act. The reason for this is assigned in the hours when work is carried on in the bakehouses, and in the high temperatures prevailing. The committee, however, does not wish it understood that it considers that any increase in air space will obviate the necessity of a properly planned system of ventilation.

A New Maryland Hospital.-A new hospital, to cost $40,000, will be erected at Cambridge, Md. The state has appropriated $5,000, Cambridge has given $5,000, and E. J. Hurst has donated $15,000. The hospital is to be built on a bluff in East Cambridge, and will accommodate thirty-five patients. The present hospital accommodations of Cambridge. are said to be inadequate.

The Burke Foundation.-Lyman J. Gage was recently elected vice-president of

the Winifred Masterson Burke

Relief Foundation to succeed the late Abram S. Hewitt. In addition to Mr. Gage the following new directors have been elected: William H. H. Moore, C. Adolphe Low, Edwin S. Marston, James S. Alexander, Dr. John S. Billings, Robert W. de Forest, R. Fulton Cutting and Erskine Hewitt, son Abram S. Hewitt.

California and the Children's Court.The children's court bill, passed at the recent session of the California legislature, went into operation the week of May 1. Judge Muraskey is judge of the San Francisco Court. At Oakland, the Associated Charities will see that the children's court has a probation officer, and the Oakland Club has undertaken the collection of money to pay for a county probation officer under the new probation law.

Classified Advertisements

Advertisements under this head, two lines or more without display, 10 cents a line.

HE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY appeals

TH for $600 to place a refined American couple in

a permanent home. The husband, because of advanced years and poor health, is incapacitated for work. His wife, an invalid seventy-four years of age, has struggled bravely to earn enough at sewing for their support, but is no longer able to do this.

Any money for the above case sent to the Charity Organization Society, 105 East 22d street, will be duly and publicly acknowledged.

The Society acknowledges with thanks receipt of the following contributions in response to recent appeals: "A Friend E.." $120; "E. D., "F. H. B." and "Montclair," $10 each; H. B." and "Miss M. H. B.." $5 each; "Mrs. H. P. Howell," $4; "C. L. S.," $1.