The City Inspector, at that time, was a grossly ignorant politician, but as he had upwards of one million of dollars at his disposal, he had a prevailing influence in the Legislature when any bill affected his interests. At the hearing on the Association’s bill, the City Inspector’s agents denied every allegation as to the unsanitary condition of the city, and as the Association had no definite information as to the facts asserted, the bill failed, as had all the bills of the Sanitary Association during the previous ten years.
In conference it was now decided to make a thorough sanitary inspection of the city by a corps of competent physicians, draft a new and much more comprehensive measure, and thus be prepared to confront the City Inspector with reliable facts in Sanitary Inspection
of New York regard to the actual condition of the city. The Citizens’ Association consented to bear the expense of the undertaking.
Under the auspices of the Association, and in the absence of the secretary of the Committee on Health, Dr. Elisha Harris, who was at that time in the service of the United States Sanitary Association, I organized and supervised the inspection. The corps of inspectors consisted of young physicians, each assigned to one of the districts into which the city was divided. The work was completed during the summer months of 1864, and the original reports of the inspectors were bound in seventeen large folio volumes. These reports were afterwards edited by the secretary, Dr. Elisha Harris, and published by the Association in a volume of over 500 pages. The total cost to the Association of this inspection and publication was $22,000; but it richly repaid the Association, for it accomplished the object for which it was undertaken.
This volunteer sanitary inspection of a great city was regarded by European health authorities as the most remarkable and creditable in the history of municipal reform. Too much credit can not be given to the President of the Association, Peter Cooper, and to the Secretary, Nathaniel Sands, for the constant support which they gave the Committee on Health in the prosecution of this great undertaking.
Meantime the Committee on Law perfected a bill to be introduced at the coming session of the Legislature, 1865. It was the joint product of the Medical and Law Committees, and was made the subject of extensive study and research, in order to embody in it every provision essential to its practical operations.
At the request of the Committees I made the first draft for the purpose of embodying the sanitary features as the basis of the bill. Former health bills were restricted in their operations to the city of New York, and the officers were appointed by the Mayor. As the government of the city was dominated in all of its departments by Tweed, it was decided to place the proposed new health organization under the control of the State, by making a Metropolitan Health District, the area of which should be co-extensive with that of the Metropolitan Police District. This feature of the bill was also important because the protection of the city from contagious diseases in outlying districts required that the jurisdiction of the Board should extend to contiguous populations.
The original draft having been approved by the Committee on Health, Mr. Eaton was requested to perfect the bill by adding the legal provisions. As he had recently made a study of the English health laws, he incorporated many items especially relating to the powers of the Board which were quite novel in this country.
One feature of the bill deserves mention; for it is an anomaly in legislation and apparently violates the most sacred principle of justice; viz., the power of the courts to review the proceedings of a health board. The Committees An Anomaly
in Law concluded that a board which was authorized to abate nuisances “dangerous to life and detrimental to health” should not be subjected to the possible liability of being interrupted in its efforts to abate them by an injunction that would delay its action. Accordingly the law as so drawn that the Metropolitan Board was empowered to create ordinances, to execute them in its own time and manner, and to sit in judgment on its own acts, without the possibility of being interrupted by review proceedings or injunctions by any court.
Its power was made autocratic. The language of that portion of the bill conveying these powers was purposely made very technical, in order that only a legal mind could interpret its full meaning, it being believed that the ordinary legislator would not favor the measure if he understood its entire import. It is an interesting fact that the first case brought into court under the law was an effort to prove the unconstitutionality of this feature; but it was carried to the Court of Appeals, and its constitutionality was sustained by a majority of one.
On the assembling of the Legislature of 1865 the Metropolitan Health Bill was formally introduced into both houses, and preparations made to secure its passage. Mr. Eaton was selected by the Citizens’ Association to advocate Introduction of an
Epoch-Making Bill the legal provisions of the bill at the hearings before the committees of the Legislature, and I was delegated to explain the sanitary requirements of the measure. The first hearing occurred on the thirteenth of February, before a joint committee of both houses, Hon. Andrew D. White, senator, presiding. A large audience was present, including the City Inspector and the usual retinue of office holders in his department. The Citizens Association was represented by Rev. Henry W. Bellows, Dr. James R. Wood, Dr. Willard Parker, Prof. John W. Draper, and several other prominent citizens, in addition to Mr. Eaton and myself.