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

FIFTH BIKNNIAL KEPORT. 45-
mailed so far is 1,517. The "instructions" in quantity
will be sent to all County Superintendents and
municipal
health officers. With them will be sent the placards
required to be posted on the front door of every house containing
a case of either of the diseases mentioned in section
nine.
Continuing the plan of trying to educate the people in
sanitary matters b}' popular articles in the newspapers, I
sent an article, together with a copy of the Instructions for
Quarantine and Disinfection, to every newspaper in the
State with a request that they publish same.
Just on this line members of the profession can be of
great assistance, provided they approve of the plan and
the articles, by using their influence with the editors of
their local papers to get them to publish them. A public
sentiment favorable to sanitation must be built up if we
expect to make any substantial progress. The Anglo-
Saxon people of this free country cannot be driven to the
performance of what they do not approve. They must be
persuaded of the importance of these restraints upon their
liberties under certain circumstances before they can be
successfully imposed.
But the physicians of the State can be
of much greaterservice
to the cause of the public health in another way,,
and that is by giving to the law and the sanitary regulations
imposed by it their own cordial support. Indeed
the practical application of the law is in the hands of our
medical men. If they give it their cordial support and
urge its importance upon their patients it will be carried
out, but if the}' are indifferent, and make light of and
belittle it it will surely be largely of no effect. In view of
the wholesale danger to life of the spread of contagious
and infectious diseases, which can almost surely be prevented
by the strict enforcement of .^anitary regulations,