The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

IPUBLI5AED BYTAE N°RTA CAROLINA STATE B°ARD*AEALTAVol. 70 JANUARY, 1955 No. 1J. W. R. NORTON, M.D., M.P.H., State Health Officer JOHN H. HAMILTON, M.D., EditorPAPER PRESENTED AT NORTH CAROLINAPUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION MEETINGRaleigh, North Carolina, September 23, 1954L. C. AMOSChairman of Guilford County Commissioners.Past President of N. C. County Commissioners Association,Greensboro, North CarolinaNearly everyone today accepts theIdea that organized public health serviceIs one of the fundamental responsibilitiesof government in our society.It is true that opinions differ as towhat proportions of public health responsibilityshould properly be borneby Federal, by state, by county, andby municipal government. However, thebasic theory of governmental responsibilityfor protecting the public healthhas advanced in practice to the pointthat modern American government atevery level is now engaged in some partof the work—the Federal governmentthrough the United States PublicHealth Service and related agencies,the state government through theState Board of Health, and the localunits through district, county, andsometimes municipal health departments.Development of State GovernmentalResponsibility for HealthIn North CarolinaThe first substantial piece of healthlegislation applicable to the territorywhich is North Carolina was enactedin 1712 by the "General Assembly" ofthe Province of Carolina and was entitled"An Act for the More EffectualPreventing of the Spread of ContagiousDistempers." It was of course a maritimequarantine law and appointed a"Commissioner for Enguireing into theState of Health" of persons arriving atports in the province, particularly atCharleston.In the 241 years between the GeneralAssembly of 1712 and the GeneralAssembly of 1953 hundreds of pieces ofhealth legislations, most of them aimedat "The more effectual preventing" ofone or another of a myriad of threatsto the public health, were spread uponthe statute books of North Carolinaduring its progress from crown colonyto sovereign state.The early statute in the field ofmaritime quarantine regulation wasfollowed during the next century anda half by other statutes on the samesubject, but the seed thus planted didnot quickly ripen into general recognitionof governmental responsibilityfor public health. In terms of sheervolume and number, comparatively fewof our statutes enacted prior to theCivil War had anything to do with