e days of scientific knowledge,
when the exact and fundamental causes and processes of diseases are so
clearly known to medical men and when laws based on this knowledge have
been enacted for the purpose of reducing mortality and preventing the
spread of disease, ignorant individuals should allow their prejudices to
stand in the way of compliance with the spirit of these laws.

In New York State, Section 24 of the Public Health Law requires the
local Board of Health to isolate all persons and things infected with or
exposed to infectious diseases. They are required to prohibit and
prevent all intercourse and communication with or use of infected
premises, places, and things, and to require and, if necessary, to
provide the means for the thorough purification and cleansing of the
same before general intercourse with the same or use thereof shall be
allowed. The Penal Code of the state further provides that a person who,
having been lawfully ordered by a health officer to be detained in
quarantine and not having been discharged, willfully violates any
quarantine law or regulation is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by
fine or imprisonment or both. In spite of this prohibition, it is very
rare to find that a person in a quarantined house feels any personal
obligation. He stays in or out, if obliged to by a policeman, or, if the
sentiment among the neighbors is aroused in favor of quarantine, he
waits until dark enough to escape observation.

In New York, two years ago, a case of diphtheria broke out in the family
of a Christian Scientist. The health officer visited the house, offered
to use antitoxin, which was refused, and instructed quarantine. The
mother and one daughter died, and the healer was imprisoned for entering
the house in defiance of the quarantine law. This case illustrates how
the moral obligation may be distinctly repudiated because of religious
prejudice. But even religious belief must be subservient to the laws
governing the community in which a man chooses to live, and, so long as
the residence continues, the laws governing quarantine, as all other
laws, must be obeyed. In this case another count against parents may be
found. Section 288 of the Penal Code provides "that a person who
willfully omits without lawful excuse to perform a duty by law imposed
upon him to furnish food, clothing, shelter, or medical attendance to a
minor is guilty of a misdemeanor." It would seem, therefore, that the
law is p