TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW BOARD OF HEALTH.
THE direct intervention of an official department for the conve- nience of the public is an innovation in England, carried to its greatest point of efficiency in the establishment of the new Board of Health. It was somewhat stealing a march on Parliament ; which was quite innocent of all knowledge that it had conveyed the requisite power by that mutilated and mangled Public Health Bill. But then there was the complementary Nuisances and Contagious Diseases Bill. And it is not to be supposed that Par.. liament will be much displeased at discovering greater efficiency than it expected.
Ministers could have afforded to be more open and direct ; for we see nothing in the composition of the new department, as yet, which invites censure. The constitution of the Board could not have been better. It has two Parliamentary members : Lord Morpeth, now Earl of Carlisle, will represent it in the House of Peers, and will probably prove more efficient in the quieter waters of the Upper House, as we are certain that he will not prove less ingenuous and cordial ; Lord Ashley will represent it in the Lower House, and his sitting at the Roard furnishes a guarantee that it will be worked efficiently for the benefit of the poor and helpless. Mr. Chad wick is undoubtedly the most ex- perienced of all public servants in the administration of mea- sures concerning the regimen of the poor, and combining central and local execution. Dr. Southwood Smith is a practical phi- losopher, who has combined enlarged studies in the physiology of health with the practice of a physician. By selecting the two men who have taken the lead in originating and maturing sanatory measures, Government has given the best earnest of its sincerity. Mr. Austin, the Secretary, has also been active in the sanatory movement; he is a person of great intelligence, and as a practical engineer brings to the Board the knowledge of an art essential to its effective operation. On the whole, therefore, we say that the constitution of the Board is the best that could have been made : not a member could be spared, and we do not know that Ministers could add to the number with advantage. The Board looks like a reality-a thing made not for show but for work.
And the public will look to its work. The members of the Board have all been pledged, by their own advice urged upon Government, to a variety of specific measures : the public will watch with anxiety to see whether the appointment to office causes the usual metamorphosis, that of converting reformers into ob- structives-the suggesters of facilities into the pleaders of" diffi- culties." A variety of measures are recorded under the hands of the working members, as urgently and imperatively necessary : the public will look for activity and decision in those members. The General Board of Health is bound by the antecedents of its members, by its own constitution, to be one of the most efficient
i departments n the public service-a Minerva, wise and armed at all points from the hour of birth.
On the other hand, the public has its duty-to make use of the services rendered by the Board-to test the efficiency of the de- partment by giving it full employment and using its aid. Already those services have begun in the issue of authentic directions for the conduct of local bodies, and of the public gene- rally, under the visitation of the cholera. That scourge seems to have reached our shores, though it is not yet seen in its full strength. That we are better prepared to meet it, is due, in the main' to the unofficial labours of the gentlemen sitting in Gwydyr House : they have now the official authority to accredit them to the public and to carry out their plans. The public must cooperate. It must acknowledge the advantage of possessing ac- credited advice, by observing that advice, and by not suffering the spurious suggestions which teem in the newspapers to lead it astray : some such prescriptions, from obscure practitioners in country towns, we see even in prominent type of prominent journals. The official papers of the Board are circulated in a cheap form, and are accessible to all. The Board will be best supported by the aid of the public in attaining practical suc- cess. Above all, the public should thoroughly comprehend and act upon this cardinal point of information, that cholera is in- choate in the form of diarrhcea; that it may be checked in that form ; and that a special diet and regimen are absolutely ne- cessary during the visitation. What is harmless and even salu- tary at other times is converted into poison by the virus in the atmosphere-a virus always existing, though in a latent form, while the visitation lasts, and ready at any moment to combine with the objectionable food in a fatal compound. These obser- vances are easy ; they cannot but save many lives that would otherwise be sacrificed to ignorance or wanton rashness ; and it is in the diminished mortality of the approaching scourge that tte Board, as servant of the public, must seek its first victory.
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