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Excerpt from Biennial Report of the Mississippi State Board of Health: 1886-1887 To His Excellency, Robert Lowry, Governor of the State of Mississippi: One of the penalties of civilization in a country with large foreign commercial connections like our own, is its increased liability to epidemic diseases. Of late years these diseases have either occurred, or threatened too often with us that many of the States have deemed it of vital importance to organize their medical forces against such, and even when neither were present, through prudential motives, to keep a standing army as it were in the form of boards of health with their accessories, ready at any time to be mobilized and concentrated at points where they were most needed. The origin of our own State Board of Health can be attributed to this cause. Being one of the Gulf Coast States, Mississippi in common with the others, might be regarded as one of the "Gates of Entry" of epidemic diseases in the United States especially that of Yellow Fever which originates in countries South of us. Feeling deeply our share of the responsibility in preventing their ingress into and through our State, the State Board of Health has, both in and out of season, been on the alert closely watching such territory which has been under its control. Several times epidemics have theatened especially two notable instances, one of Small Fox, mentioned in the report of my predecessor Dr, Kittrell, and latterly that of the so culled Biloxi Fever in the past year, the first named was stamped out, and the latter so confined, that it did not spread beyond the county in which originated. Since my term of office commenced we have had in the State no epidemic save that of the Biloxi Fever, but from time to time there has been a prevalence in different localities of infectious and contagious diseases such as typhoid fever, measles, dj sentery and mumps: the average health of the State hasbeeu good. Leaving out physical causes this can fairly be attributed to the increased knowledge the people have of both public and personal hygiene, such as proper attention to drainage, the greater care given to potable water, the proper appreciation and use of disinfectants and the bserance individually of good hygienic habits yet, - there is much unlearned. The importance of the subject is my excuse for mentioning that which Dr. Kittrell, amongst other matters, so wisely dwelt on, viz; the working of our law "To Regulate the Practice of Medicine." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
