draw heavily upon the earnings of 1906, thereby greatly reducing the Board's cash balance. NEED OF AN AMPLE APPROPRIATION. Notwithstanding the large reduction in its salary list effected by abolishing three offices, aggregating more than five thousand dollars per annum, and the most careful supervision of all expenses, the Board finds that in order to provide for meeting the varied and increasing demands of the work which is legally and morally incumbent upon it, an ample State appropriation must be available. That appropriation should not be hampered with conditions or designated by any title limiting its use, but should be simply the amount set aside by the State of Louisiana for the support of its Health Department, just as the State provides for the Charity Hospital in New Orleans, an institution which also has other sources of income, as for the State Insane Asylum at Jackson. There is no more reason why the State Board of Health, which is required by law to protect the people against disease, should be expected to rent offices, keep up laboratories, employ a skilled staff of physicians and otherwise perform its important work on an insufficient allowance of money, than that the State institutions just mentioned should be expected to care for the injured, sick and insane without receiving from the State Treasury means sufficient to maintain them in the highest condition of efficiency. In the fight which the law requires the State Board of Health to make in the interest of pure food, drugs, etc., it will be opposed by millions of capital. To make that fight effective all over Louisiana, the Board, as the agent of the State, besides being clothed with legal authority, must be equipped with the sinews of war. The General Assembly has enacted the necessary laws and it now logically devolves upon that body to place at the command of its agent ample means to make those laws active in protecting the people. PURE FOOD LEGISLATION. Among the most pressing obligations felt by the new State Board of Health was that of securing such legislation as would serve to protect the people against the sale of adulterated food products, drugs, drinks and mineral waters. No laws specifically relating to this subject had been enacted in Louisiana for twenty years, and those on the statute books of the State were practically inoperative, except where there was a municipal food inspection. Those old statutes, five in number, were as follows: (synopsis) 1880. No. 20. To prevent the adulteration of articles used as food; -to prevent the sale of unwholesome and tainted provisions, the slaughtering of cattle, etc., for food when in an unhealthy. condition, and to prevent the landing of diseased animals within certain prescribed limits. Penalties,-$25 fine or three months imprisonment for the first offense, and for a second or subsequent offense, $50 fine, or not less than six months. imprisonment. 1882. No. 34. Making it a misdemeanor to sell or offer for sale, to ship or place upon the market for sale, any sugar or molasses adulterated with glucose or any foreign substances, without branding or stamping it as such. Penalty, imprisonment not exceeding six months and a fine not exceeding $1,000, nor less than $200, for each offence. 1882. No. 82. To define and punish adulteration of drugs, food and drink; providing for stamping articles manufactured, sold or offered for sale within the State, and prescribing certain duties of the Board of Health relative to samples, and the analysis and fees therefor. Penalties, for offering adulterated drugs, a fine of not more than $50 for the first offence and not exceeding $100 for each subsequent offence; for offering adulterated groceries at retail (unless duly stamped) a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $50 or imprisonment for not more than ten days, or both;-for knowingly offering any article of a quality inferior to grade stamped on package, a fine of not more than $100. Board of Health to make analysis of any article on application, but at expense of persons desiring same. 1886. No. 81. To prohibit the sale in Louisiana of oleomargarine and other substitutes for butter, except when so labeled as to unmistakably indicate their composition. Penalty, fine or imprisonment, or both at the discretion of the court. 1886. No. 49. Amending Act No. 34 of 1882 relative to adulteration of sugar or molasses with glucose by adding the following:-"That whoever shall employ plantation brands to sell adulterated sugar or molasses shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished as provided, etc., (by a fine of not less than $200 nor more than $1,000 and by imprisonment not exceeding six months). When the General Assembly met in 1906 no time was lost by the President of the State Board of Health in presenting a bill de signed to meet the requirements of the situation, and it is to be noted that while certain interests concerned made a strenuous fight against features of this bill considered proper by those who prepared it, the wholesale grocery merchants of New Orleans gave it friendly support all through. As there was at the same time a bill before Congress known as the "Foods and Drugs Act," some embarrassment was for a time experienced by the friends of the proposed Louisiana law as regards possible divergence of requirements between the Federal and State acts in case the latter should be framed and passed in advance of the former. Therefore, the General Assembly of Louisiana by a Concurrent Resolution adopted in June memoralized Congress on this subject in Act No. 42, the text of which is as follows: CONCURRENT RESOLUTION MEMORALIZING THE FEDERAL CON GRESS. Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, the Senate concurring, That the Legislature of the State of Louisiana most earnestly request the Federal Congress now sitting in Washington, that it take definite and speedy action on the pure food legislature now before it. This request is made because, in the judgment of this body, the conditions at this time require national legislation on the subject, and because in the absence of proper national legislation this State is hampered in the enforcement of its own laws for the protection of its people. It transpired that Congress was just about to pass its famous "Food and Drugs Act," which was approved June 30, 1906. The full text of that act and of the U. S. Government Regulation founded thereon will be found in Appendix A. supplemental to this report. After the enactment of the Federal "Food and Drugs Act" of June, 1906, which gave a notable impetus to State legislation along the same lines, the General Assembly of Louisiana quickly completed its present Food and Drug Law, Act No. 98 of 1906, approved July 7, the full text of which is here given. Article 297 of the Constitution of Louisiana in obedience to which that law was enacted is as follows: Art. 297. The General Assembly shall provide for the interest of State Medicine in all its departments; for the protection of the people. from unqualified practitioners of medicine and dentistry; protecting confidential communications made to medical men by their patients while under professional treatment and for the purpose of such treatment; for protecting the people against the sale of injurious or adulterated drugs, food and drinks, and against any and all adulterations of the general necessaries of life of whatever kinds and char acter. By Mr. Smart. FOOD AND DRUG LAW. ACT NO. 98. (1906). House Bill 295. (Chairman of the Committee on Public Health and Quarantine). Substitute for House Bills 52 and 94. AN ACT To further carry into effect Art. 297 of the Constitution of the State of Louisiana, and to preserve the public health. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Louisiana: Section 1. That the State Board of Health for the State of Louisiana, be, and is hereby authorized and empowered in order to further carry into effect Art. 297 of the Constitution of 1898, to revise the sanitary code provided for by Section 3 of Act 192 of 1898, and to incorporate therein rules and regulations governing the manufacture, sale and inspection of foods, liquors, waters and drugs within the State in so far as the same may affect the public health; to fix standards of purity; to provide for the collection of samples and the entering of premises for this purpose; to provide for the establishment of a laboratory for the analysis of foods, liquors, drugs and water; to employ an analyst and assistants, and fix and pay their compensation; and to do all other acts as may be requisite and proper to carry this Act into effect. Provided, that as a standard of purity and strength for drugs, chemicals and medicines, the said Board shall adopt the United States' Pharmacopoeia and the National Formulary as to all drugs, chemicals and medicines therein contained and treated of; and the Board shall renew said adoption as often as new or revised edition of the said Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary are issued. Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, etc., That the power to further revise and amend said sanitary code, is hereby conferred on said State Board of Health for the State of Louisiana, provided that any revisions or amendments adopted by said Board, shall before going into effect, be promulgated in the same manner as is required by existing law for the sanitary code. Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, etc., That any person violating any of the provisions of said sanitary code, shall on conviction by any court of competent jurisdiction, be fined not less than ten nor more than two hundred dollars for the first offense; not less than twentyfive nor more than four hundred dollars for the second offense; not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars, or imprisonment for not less than ten days nor more than six months, or both in the discretion of the court, for each subsequent offense. Section 4. Be it further enacted, etc., That all fines imposed under the provisions of this Act shall be paid into the treasury of the State, to the credit of the general fund. Sec. 5. Be it further enacted, etc., That it shall be the duty of the president of the said Board to make an annual report to the Governor of the operations of said Board of Health under this Act. Sec. 6. Be it further enacted, etc., That this Act shall take effect from and after its promulgation, and all laws and parts of laws inconsistent or in conflict with the provisions of this Act be, and the same are hereby repealed. FORMULATION BY THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH OF REGULATIONS Immediately after the passage of the State Law authorizing the State Board of Health to move in the matter of adopting regulations to govern the manufacture, sale and inspection of foods, liquors, waters and drugs in Louisiana, the President and Special Medical Inspector, with assistance from the Chemist began the work of formulating for approval by the Board the required code of rules and regulations. This undertaking necessitated the most careful study and analysis of the Federal Regulation, and by way of comparison, those adopted in other States, copies of which were secured and dissected with painstaking care, with the object of profiting by suggestions to be drawn from such sources. On account of the constant pressure of official duties most of this work had to be done out of hours and usually at night. From time to time the draft of regulation as far as prepared was |