The New International Encyclopædia/Sanitary Laws

SANITARY LAWS. Statutes and regulations enacted under authority of the police power of the State directed to the preservation of the public health. To the first class belong quarantine laws and regulations, both foreign and domestic; statutes prescribing the requirements for the practice of medicine and surgery; ordinances prescribing rules of conduct in public places and vehicles; and provisions for tenement-house erection and inspection. To the second class belong sewer and water-supply systems; provisions for scavengers and street cleaning, meat and food inspection; ordinances prohibiting the building and maintaining of abattoirs in crowded districts; the prohibition or regulation of the manufacture and sale of unwholesome food products and adulterated drugs and provisions; the establishment of hospitals and institutions for the care of children and the insane; sanitariums for the treatment of tuberculosis and epilepsy; acts providing for the incorporation and regulation of cemeteries; the erection and support of public baths, public parks, and clean and healthful places of public amusement.

Early in the reign of Henry VIII. and later in Elizabeth's time there are indications of intelligent restriction and regulation of unhealthy trades and occupations, but these enactments gradually fell into disuse until, with the invasion of Asiatic cholera, such was the sanitary condition of English town and village life that 70,000 persons perished in a single year. The sanitary legislation that followed up to the last century was mainly ineffective, and there continued to be periodical epidemics in England, which swept away large numbers. It was not until 1848 that a general system of sanitary legislation was established in England. France and the German States had meanwhile developed systems adapted to their special methods of administration. The French system established in 1832 is characterized by councils of public health, having only advisory duties for each department, with the executory authority lodged in the prefect. The French system is generally followed by Belgium, Spain, and Italy, though Italy by its maritime cities was the pioneer in sanitary legislation during the Middle Ages. The German system is dominated by the faculties of its great medical institutions and relies for its administration upon the paternal attitude of the Government. In England and the United States sanitary laws are placed under the control of special bureaus or boards of health, separate provisions for this purpose being made in the Federal and State systems, the latter also delegating to municipal corporations the powers necessary to make and enforce regulations for the protection of the public health within their jurisdictions. (See Health, Board of.) The diseases which require the attention of the legislator may be classified as endemic, contagious, and epidemic. (See Contagious Diseases; Endemic; Epidemic.) Boards of health are not liable for errors of judgment when acting within their jurisdiction, though they are liable for negligence. Yet a city or municipality cannot be held responsible for the negligence of a physician of the board, the mismanagement of its hospital, or even the wrongful appropriation of property by members of the board of health, for the purpose for which the board is created is governmental in character and the municipality derives no benefit in its corporate capacity from the performance of this duty.

See Police Power; Quarantine; Nuisance, etc.; and consult the authorities mentioned there; also Lumley, Public Health (5th ed., London, 1896); Stockman, A Practical Guide for Sanitary Inspectors (ib., 1900).