ollected within that time, as far as the author is aware.

The law imposing fines for neglect of removal of garbage or of
screening stables must be occasionally enforced in order to express
degree of disapproval. A petty fine is of little use.

Conditions of motion, of rapid intermingling of distant populations--a
thousand miles in a day is now possible--make national control a
necessity. It is proved that quick results may be gained in saving
lives and property by that prompt and thorough action which
well-equipped Federal forces alone possess. The stamping out of yellow
fever in Cuba, the redemption of Panama, the suppression of sporadic
outbreaks at New Orleans, the quick response to a discovery, as in the
cases of pellagra and the hookworm--all these show what a thoroughly
alive government may do.

It is no disgrace to an individual or a city to have the national
laboratory make discoveries, to have the national power put down
epidemics, as it does civil rebellion, for the good of the whole
nation. It is disgraceful, however, for the citizen to remain
indifferent or obstructive, to grumble over the cost. The indifference
of the people themselves is today almost the only stumbling block to
national prosperity.

The time lost to the average worker by inefficient labor is a drain on
the community largely avoidable, and is the cause of that other drain
on the moral as well as physical vitality--charity.

Preventive medicine is a science by itself, a combination of social
and scientific forces guided by research quickly applied, and it must
be accepted and upheld by those whom it benefits, namely, all the
citizens. The nation is in many cases the only power strong enough to
command confidence, and in the combination of government effort an
international science of human welfare is bound to be evolved.

It is a waste of effort for each state to prepare a fly pamphlet. The
correctness of a Government Bulletin would give an added value as well
as the rapidity of circulation. The bulletins of the Agricultural
Department are an example.

The Weather Service, with its quick notifications, shows what a health
service might do. A monthly or weekly _health chart_ would give the
best and worst spots.

Precautions really workable might be furnished the Associated Press.

In short, system and science might be put at the service of the local
health officer, of the traveler, and even of the housewife.

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