SANITARY LAWS 235 SANITARY SCIENCE them consisting of 23 men, and others consisting of three men only. These courts of 23 men (Lesser Synedrion), however, as well as those of the three men, probably represent only smaller or larger committees chosen from the gen- eral body. Excluded from the office of judge were: those born in adultery; men born of non-Israelite parents; gamblers; usurers; those who sold fruit grown in the Sabbatical year; and, in individual cases, near relatives. All these were also not admitted as witnesses. Two scribes were always present, one registering the condemnatory, the other the exculpatory votes. The mode of procedure was ex- ceedingly complicated; and such was the caution of the court, especially in mat- ters of life and death, that capital pun- ishment was pronounced in the rarest instances only. The Nasi had the su- preme direction of the court and con- voked it when necessary. He sat at the head, and to his right hand was the seat of the Ab-Beth-Din. The court met on extraordinary occa- sions in the house of the high priest; its general place of assembly, however, was a certain hall (Lishcat Hagaziz), probably situated at the S. W. corner of one of the courts of the temple. With the exception of Sabbath and feast days it met daily. The political troubles forced the Sanhedrin (70 B.. c.) to change its meeting-place, which was first trans- ferred to certain bazaars (Hannyoth) at the foot of the temple mount. After the destruction of the temple and Jeru- salem it finally established itself, after many further emigrations, in Babylon. The question as to the origin and de- velopment of the Sanhedrin is a difficult one. It is said it was intended to be a faithful reproduction of the Mosaic as- sembly of the 70 (Moses himself making 71), supposed to have been re-estab- lished by Ezra after the Exile. SANITARY LAWS, statutes or regu- lations for the protection of the public health. Sanitary laws may be divided into two classes: first, those instituted by legislation, providing for quarantine protection, the practice of medicine and conduct in public places. Tenement house laws, regulating the construction of habitations, size of rooms and cubic space per member of families domiciled, also come under this head. The second class includes such ordinances or regu- lations as govern the disposal of sewage, the regulation or protection of the water supply, conditions under which meat and other foods must be stored and distributed, and the erection of pub- lic sanitaria and public baths. It is only within recent years that the pro- tection of public health has been made the object of special legislation, since the teachings of science have demon- strated the possibility of prevention against contagious diseases. It has been legislation of this kind which has prac- tically put an end to violent epidemics, especially of what are generally known as the dirt diseases, such as cholera and small pox. SANITARY SCIENCE, the science which deals with the preservation of health and the prevention of disease. Considered broadly, disease is due to environmental conditions which cause in- jury of the living body. The causes of disease are usually divided into the ex- ternal, which act from without, and the internal, due to imperfection of the body, but these imperfections in the first instance are due to external causes. Sanitary science then comes to be the study of the influence of unfavorable environmental conditions on the body during the entire course of life from conception to death. Public health, which deals with disease causes, of such a character as to produce an effect on the general population, personal hygiene or the preservation of the health of the individual, infectious diseases and the measures of protection against them, the influence of age, climate and occupation on health, water supplies, the nutritive values of foods and the methods of marketing and preserving foods, meth- ods of the disposal of waste material, the construction of dwellings and fac- tories and the influence of factory life on the workers, vital statistics by means of which the state of health of a com- munity can be ascertained, social pa- thology or the influence of poverty and social conditions in the production of disease; all these and many more are considered under sanitary science, and for the most part form separate de- partments of it. Health of its people is considered the most important asset of a state, and nothing contributes more to happiness and well being. Sickness renders the state not only less efficient in produc- tion and less capable of defense, but the care of the sick and indigent, for poverty and sickness go together, is an enormous tax upon the well. Good health is not even a matter of indi- vidual choice, but for the sake of the well-being of society the individual is restrained from actions which would be injurious to himself or > to others. A great mass of laws, national, state and local, designed for the protection of tho people against disease, have been en- acted and large sums of money from
