Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

TRIBUTES AND RESOLUTIONS 19
as president of the Municipal Voters' League, which has
done so much to purge the City Council of the "gray
wolves" that have infested it. The important duties of
this position were not to be discharged without opposition
and the estrangement of some strong influential patrons,
but he swerved not an iota in the courageous discharge of
its
duties as he saw them.
Of the many other movements to which he gave of his
time and strength, it is not possible to speak in this brief
sketch, excepting of the one which gave him the largest
scope and brought him into national prominence. In 1910
the American Medical Association created the Council on
Health and Public Instruction, whose function it is to promote
the education and advance the interests of the public
along health lines. Almost from its creation he was chairman
of the Council, and it is doubtful if any man in the
medical profession could have directed its activities as
sanely and effectively as did Dr. Favill. Wisely keeping
the Council out of all participation in political activity, and
holding it firmly to the line of an educational propaganda,
and seeking the fullest and most effective cooperation
with other national organizations having purposes in common,
he was largely instrumental in making the Council
one of the strongest, most productive agencies for good
in the field of public health. Dr. Favill saw much more
clearly than most physicians the strong, steady trend of
medicine in
the direction of preventive as contrasted with
curative medicine, and the large part which sociologic principles
and methods must play in its development. He
believed that this development must come almost wholly
through the universal education of the people, and that
only on the basis of a widespread understanding of the
possibilities and essential requisites of hygiene and sanitation
could effective legislation be secured.
In his direction of the work of the Council he displayed
rare administrative and executive ability. Unyielding in