1893-1894 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

appp:ni)IX.
THE SALISBURY HEALTH CONFERENCE.
As constituting an important item of the Board's work,
we append the proceedings, including the papers read, at a
health conference with the people held at Salisbury on September
13, 1894. The following editorials will explain the
reasons for it and give a short resume, from wdiich the
reader can at a glance learn its scope and character:
:VIEETIXG OF THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH.
At the regular annual meeting of the Board with the State Meihcal
Society at Greensboro in May last it was decided to hold three meetings
each year at difterent points in the State chiefly for the purpose of stirring
up interest on the part of the people in sanitary matters. The tirst of
these extra meetings will take place at Salisbury on Thursday, the 13th
proximo. We go to press too early to publish the programme, but
several papers are promised and we are sanguine of liaving an interesting
and protitable meeting. As its prime object is to spread among the
people a knowledge of hygiene and to enkindle interest in the practical
enforcement of the laws of health, it goes witliout saying that the
general public will be invited, not only to attend but to participate in
the discussions. Indeed, it is hoped that it will develop into a general
sanitary conference between the Board and the citizens, many of whom
we trust will be present.
This question of reaching the people and sufficiently impressing them
with the importance and value of the laws of hygiene to bring about
their practical observance is the vital point in sanitary administration
with us here in North Carolina, and we suppose elsewhere. As we have
said more than once before in these coluiuns, no law can be carried out
that is not supported by public opinion, and we are striving to build up
such a public opinion in favor of the most beneficent of all laws—those
of health— without whicii happiness is impossible and life and liberty
are hardly worth having. The almost invincible indifference