OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH OF NEW YORK For the Year Ending December 31, 1914 VOLUME I ALBANY J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS B 2121 v.35 pt STATE OF NEW YORK No. 57 IN ASSEMBLY FEBRUARY 1, 1915 THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH STATE OF NEW YORK, EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, ALBANY, February 1, 1915 To the Legislature: I have the honor to transmit herewith the thirty-fifth annual [3] HERMANN M. BIGGS, M.D., LL.D. New York City, Chairman Mrs. Elmer Blair..... Chairman, Public Health Department, General Federation of Women's Albany Clubs Simon Flexner, M.D., LL.D... .New York City Director, Laboratories of Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research Homer Folks, LL.D........ Yonkers Secretary, State Charities Aid Association Henry N. Ogden, C.E.... Professor, Sanitary Engineering, Cornell University T. Mitchell Prudden, M.D., LL.D...... Vice-President, Board of Scientific Directors, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research Wilhelm Gaertner, A.M., M.D., Ph.D....... ..Buffalo .Ithaca New York City Attending Physician, German Hospital THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH PART I Letter of Transmissal His Excellency, Charles S. Whitman, Governor of New York State, Albany, N. Y.: SIR. In presenting the Annual Report of the State Department of Health, I desire to ask your consideration of the great opportunities for improving the health and prolonging the lives of the people of the State of New York, recently made possible by the revelations of scientific medicine. These discoveries promise many benefits which are as yet very incompletely realized, and open new fields of activity as yet almost untouched. It is the earnest desire of my associates and myself, through the State Department of Health, to render them available in a greater degree than in the past, for the prevention of disease and the prolongation of life. The Promise of Preventive Medicine The teachings of modern scientific research are clear Disease and unmistakable. Disease can be prevented and life pro- can be prevented longed. The approach of fatal maladies can be foreseen and life and stayed. The average mental capacity and the physical prolonged efficiency of mankind can be further materially increased and its happiness and contentment proportionately augmented. The misery and loss resulting from a host of minor ailments may be greatly diminished. sani- Shall this The generation profit by the Much already has been accomplished by modern tary measures; much more remains to be done. significance of the discoveries as to the nature and causa- teachings of tion of disease cannot be misinterpreted or their importance safely ignored. The urgent question before every Science |