HEALTH, STATE BOARDS OF, institutions established by state legislative enact ments, having many specific relations in regard to the public health, but intended to have a central advisory relation with local sanitary organizations, and also to super intend a state system of vital statistics. There are now in the United States 24 state boards, Massachusetts was the first to organize such a board, which she did in June, 1869, under a law which had been steadily asked for since 1850. California was the next state to organize a board, in 1870; Michigan and Louisiana followed in 1871, and Minnesota and Virginia in 1872; Alabama, Maryland. and Georgia in 1875; Colorado and Wisconsin in 1876; New Jersey and Illinois in 1877, Connecticut, Kentucky, Ten nessee, Mississippi, and Rhode Island in 1878; Arkansas, Delaware, North Carolina, and Texas in 1879, and New York and South Carolina in 1880.
The act establishing the state board of health of New York was passed May 18, 1880. It provides for the appointment of "three state commissioners of health, two of whom shall be graduates of legally constituted medical colleges. The said commissioners together with the attorney-general, the superintendent of the state survey, and the health officer of the port of New York, who shall be ex officio members of the state board of health, and three other persons to be designated and appointed by the gov ernor, one of whom shall be a commissioner of health of the board of health of the city of New York, and the others shall be members or commissioners of health of regularly constituted and organized boards of health of cities of the state, shall consti tute a board of health of the state of New York." The said three commissioners first named shall hold their office for three years, and whenever a vacancy occurs the place shall be filled as in other eases provided by law. Meetings shall be held at least once in every
three months, and as much oftener as shall be deemed necessary. No member of the board except the secretary shall receive any compensation, but the actual traveling and other expenses of the members and officers while on duty shall be allowed and paid out of the atppropriation made for its support. They shall elect annually one member .f the board Co. bo president, and from their oWn or otherwise a person of skilled experience in public health duties to he secretary and executive officer of the board, who shall have all the powers and privileges of a member of the board, except in regard to voting upon matters relating to his own office, to hold office for three years. The state board has the general supervision of the state system of registration of births, marriages, and deaths, and also of prevalent diseases. There are in (1880) the state of New York 333 incorporated villages, each of. which under a general statute of 1870 may have a good local board of health. There are besides 939 townships, each of which may organize a local board of health, which shall consist of the supervisor and a majority of the justices of the peace of the township. They are required to appoint a competent physician as health officer, who has the largest powers conferred on him by a state law of 1850, such as power to quarantine places, regulate sources of disease, disin fect, etc. The state board is continually causing sanitary surveys to be made of sickly localities, and there form data for present and future sanitary work.