There are few more interesting matters re lating to the public health than the control of the adulteration of foods and drinks. In spite of the increase of general intelligence, flaming advertisements of quack medicines too often disfigure the pages of the newspaper press and testify to the enormous use of patent medicines, drugs, etc., by the public at large. In many States special laboratories are maintained for the investigation of foods and drinks, and stringent laws exist for the regulation of their adulteration and sale. One of the most striking facts which these have disclosed is that many of the so-called compounds, tonics, sarsa parillas and other patent foods or medicines are rich in alcohol, some of them containing as much alcohol as many kinds of wine or beer. Some which profess to contain certain in gredients are totally lacking in them, and others which profess to cure the alcohol habit or the morphine habit actually contain alcohol or mor phine respectively, occasionally in large quan tities. The revelations. which proceed from these State laboratories are sometimes startling, and any one interested in the public health should inform himself upon this subject. as he may readily do by turning, for example, to the 'Annual Reports of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts.' State and Municipal Laboratories are thus an important and modern adjunct to the public health work of boards of health. In the best of these means are provided for the rapid and certain diagnosis of doubtful cases of diph theria, typhoid fever, malaria, hydrophobia, glanders, anthrax and some other infectious diseases. In them also analyses of milk, water. ice, sewage, vinegar and other liquids, of illu minating gas and of air, and of substances sub ject to infection or adulteration may be made; foods and drinks may be examined; materials for pavements or buildings may be tested and a great variety of useful operations conducted all tending to a better knowledge of local sani tary conditions. It is doubtful if any arm of
the public health service is to-day more impor tant than this. Largely in consequence of all these and many other efforts now making for the improvement of the public health, human life is probably to-day safer and healthier than it has ever been before, and the outlook for further progress is very bright. See HYGIENE; HYGIENE, MILITARY ; SANITARY SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH ; SANITARY ENGINEERING.
Bibliography.— Buck, 'Treatise on Hygiene and the Public Health' ; Sedgwick. 'Principles of Sanitary Science and Public Health' (1902); Harrington, 'Manual of Practical Hygiene for Students, Physicians and Medical Rosonau, 'Preventive Medicine and Hygiene); Palmberg, 'Treatise on Public Health and Its Applications in Different European 'Manual of Public Health); Abbott, e ygiene of Transmissible Baker, 'Municipal Engineering and Chapin, 'Municipal Sanitation in the United, and 'Sources and Modes of Infec Annual Reports of the State Boards of Health of Massachusetts and Connecticut; Monthly Bulletins of the State Boards of Health of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Michi gan, etc. The principal periodicals are Public Health Reports (Washington, D. C.) ; Public Health (London) ; The Journal of State Med icine (London) • Journal of the Sanitary In stitute (London) ; Revue d'Hygiene (Paris) ; Zeitschrift fir Hygiene and !nfectionskrank heiten (Leipzig); Archiv fur Hygiene (Munich and Berlin) ; Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur offentliche Gesundheitspflege (Brunswick) ; The American Journal of Public Health; The Jour nal of Infectious Diseases, etc. Consult also Whipple, G. C., 'Vital MacNutt, J. S., 'A Manual for Health Officers); 'An nual Reports of the Rockefeller Foundation (International Health Board), etc.