designed to make the pay of Public Health Service officers equal to that of the Army and Navy Medical Corps. This hill was passed by the Senate and reported favorably and unchanged to the House by the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Every argument strongly favored its passage. As stated by Mr. Fletcher in the report of the Senate Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine, when the bill was before the Senate:
In the opinion of the Committee, there exists no such difference in the character of the duties performed and responsibilities assumed, the hazards to which the officers are exposed, or the professional and scientific attainments required in the several services, as to warrant the existing disparity in compensation.
The committee recommended the bill to the Senate, "believing that the maintenance of the present efficiency of the Service, as well as justice to its officers, demands the equalization of pay proposed by the bill." This bill in an amended form, passed congress and was approved by the President on August II, 1912. It provided for increased salaries, and changed the name from the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service to the more accurate and less cumbersome title, the Public Health Service. The public health functions and duties of the Service were extended. "The Public Health Service may study and investigate the diseases of man and conditions influencing the propagation and spread thereof including sanitation and sewage and the pollution either direct or indirect of the navigable streams and lakes of the United States and it may from time to time issue information in the form of publications for the use of the public."
