1916] OF THE SENATE. 418-

may appear and make answer to any further inquiry which
the General Assembly may wish to make.

Respectfully submitted,

WILLIAM H. WELCH,

President.

EXPLANATION OF THE NECESSITY FOR THE APPROPRIATION OF

CERTAIN SUMS TO THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH TO BE

INCLUDED IN THE GENERAL APPROPRIATION

BILL FOR 1916 AND 1917.

Sanitary Surveys—An appropriation of $3, 000 is asked for
1916, and a like sum for 1917, for the sanitary survey of a
county in each year. Two county surveys have been completed,
of Dorchester county in 1914, and of Anne Arundel in 1915.
In both these surveys the State Department of Health had
the co-operation of the United States Public Health Service.
Without this co-operation the surveys would have been im-
possible. The Federal Government bore more than half the
cost of these surveys. The cost to the State was in round
numbers |5, 000 in two years, and was defrayed out of the
appropriation under Chapter 675 of the Acts of 1914. This
law authorizes the State Board of Health to concentrate the
Deputy State Health Officers in any of the ten Sanitary Dis-
tricts. It was thought advisable to concentrate them in Dor-
chester county in 1914, in order that they may be worked out
as a team in co-operation with officers of the United States
Public Health Service. Every rural home in Dorchester
county, and nearly every home in the towns and villages was
visited, and families were advised concerning the protection of
their drinking water, the disposal of waste, protection against
flies, and other means of avoiding certain infectious diseases,
especially typhoid fever. Besides these private conferences
hundreds of public lectures and lantern demonstrations were
given. The survey began about the middle of July and was
ended about November 1. Dorchester county had in 1914 the
lowest typhoid rate in twenty years and we believe this was
due to the survey. This method of house-to-house visiting is
probably the most important advance in recent years in the
practice of public hygiene. It brings the elementary
information concerning the spread of disease directly
to the attention of the people far more effectively
than can be done by any amount of printing or by any amount
of visiting by public health officials for the purpose of control-
ling disease actually present. The United States Public