The average salaries paid the chief health officer amounted to the magnificent sum of $300 annually.
Twelve of these cities paid nothing for health protection—and this included three cities of 22,000 population and one of 30,000 population.
One city of 26,000 population employed a layman as a health officer.
In one of 22,000 the police matron served as “health officer” when she was not otherwise engaged.
Twenty-nine of these cities made no pretense of supervising their milk supply.
Only nine of them had isolation hospitals for contagious diseases.
Thirty-one of them kept no mortuary records whatever.
These conditions exist in a prosperous agricultural and manufacturing State—and they can doubtless be found to exist in almost any State in the Union.
AGENCIES THAT CAN HELP.
These are unpleasant facts, but they give us an idea of the way we are performing the primary function of government—the guarding of human life against avoidable destruction.