of the illness it prevented. Rural sanitation depends upon education and will pay for the money and effort it costs.

Public Health Organizations. Our government has created special organizations for dealing with health work. City, county, state and nation co-operate in the work of public hygiene, enforcement of quarantines, and other public regulations.

1. United States Public Health Service. The Public Health Service has been of untold value in discovering the causes of disease and methods of prevention. It has charge of quarantine regulations between the states and at seaports. Ships coming to the United States are required to wait in quarantine while the health officers make a careful inspection. This service prevents immigrants from bringing contagions into the country. Since the close of the war the service in co-operation with the state and local boards of health has extended to child hygiene. The publication of health bulletins for general distribution has been an important branch of the Public Health Service. In this way much has been done to promote health education. Three bureaus of the United States government, the Children's Bureau, the Bureau of Education and the Bureau of Public Health, have engaged in public health work.

2. State, City and County Boards of Health. Every state has a state board of health. Many of these were established in the period immediately following the Civil War. Most state boards at first showed little activity. Appropriations were small and only the most urgent work could be done. As appropriations were increased, state-wide campaigns for the prevention of tuberculosis became frequent. Most states now have departments for sanitary engineering which deal with questions of water supply and sewage. A record of births

and deaths is kept; and child welfare has received increased attention.

County boards have power to enforce health regulations in rural communities. City boards have more difficult problems because of crowded living conditions. Contagions spread more readily. For this reason city authorities must have great powers and exercise them to protect the lives of the people.

Child Welfare. The Children's Bureau at Washington, D. C., was established in 1912. One of the important tasks of this Bureau is to decrease the high death rate of babies. The reasons for this needless loss of human life are being carefully considered and one remedy after another is being developed. Efforts to insure a clean, pure supply of milk are being continually made; visiting nurses go into the homes; medical attention, medicine and instruction are available through free medical dispensaries; booklets on the care of infants are printed— in several languages—and are widely distributed.

Nor does the government stop in the Child Welfare work with "saving the babies." Much attention is given to providing schools that are well lighted and well ventilated, often with roomy gymnasiums-and playgrounds open after school hours. Health laws have required the use of the drinking fountain, rather than the tin cup. School doctors and nurses to care for the physical welfare of the pupils are provided in many communities. The serving of milk to the pupils each morning as a means of combating the problem of "underfeeding" is advocated; a hot wholesome lunch served at a minimum cost is still another means of attacking this same. problem. Pupils spend so large a portion of their time in school that no community can afford any but sanitary school surroundings.

As a protection to the pupil when he leaves the school room

we have the Child Labor Laws regulating his hours of work and other laws insuring proper working conditions, while the sanitary and healthful living conditions are being secured for the home through housing regulations.

Pure Food Laws. If the farmer sells stale eggs direct to the consumer, the purchaser may make complaint. If the consumer and producer are thousands of miles apart, or if the food has gone through many processes of preparation, the first seller and the last buyer can have no personal dealings. Cheap adulterated foods might be placed on the market

at prices lower than pure food can be produced. Poisonous coloring matter might be used, or foods likely to decay might be preserved by using unhealthful drugs. To make sure that only pure food and drugs are sold, the United States and most of the states have pure food laws.

These laws prohibit the manufacture and sale of injurious foods and require the correct labeling of other foods. Honest weights and measures are required by most pure food laws and should be demanded by all citizens.

Provision is also made for the federal inspection of meats throughout all the large packing plants. The carcasses which have been found in wholesome condition, free from disease, are stamped with a small government stamp-a guarantee of their purity.

The Work of Voluntary Health Organizations. Our government is able to do only a small part of what scientific investigation has shown may be done to prevent disease. Public spirited people have organized voluntary health associations of various kinds, not less than fifty being at work. Prominent among these are the Red Cross, tuberculosis societies, and child welfare organizations. A national health council has been organized to secure co-operation among these societies. Leaders in the fight against disease see the whole world as one community; the United States cannot be safe with contagious disease anywhere in the world. The Rockefeller Foundation is doing a great deal in this world-wide fight against disease. George E. Vincent in the 1919 report says: "The war against disease is a world war. Commerce carries dangerous infections, as well as goods and ideas. The health problems of the remotest lands concern all peoples. More and more, nations are coming to recognize their interdependence in health as in industry, government, science, and culture."

Recreation. In large cities so many people are brought together within small space that special provision must be made to insure playgrounds for children. Some cities have preserved parks for recreation; others have found it neces

CHILDREN ENJOYING A PUBLIC PARK

sary to buy playgrounds and parks after all the ground has been built in.

The parks are rich in natural beauty with winding walks and drives, beautiful flowers, trees and shrubbery. Band concerts in the park on warm summer evenings add much to the pleasure of the city dweller, while in the winter the lagoons are crowded with skaters. In many of the "field houses" branches of the Public Library bring the pleasures of the reading room to the people of the community; gymnasium