Excerpt from Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Missouri, 1890

To the Governor:

Section 17 of the act creating the State Board of Health is as follows:

It shall be the duty of the Board of Health to make an annual report, through their secretary or otherwise, in writing, to the Governor of this State, on or before the first of January of each year, and such report shall include so much of the proceedings of the Board, and such information concerning vital and mortuary statistics, such knowledge respecting diseases, and such instructions on the subject of hygiene, as may be thought useful by the Board for dissemination among the people, with such suggestions as to legislative action as they may deem necessary.

No separate report was made for 1887, the reason for such omission being the uncertainties of the situation as related to the Board, and its embarrassed condition due to the complete failure of the General Assembly to make any financial provision whatever for its support at either the regular or called session in the winter and spring of that year. The matter of this report, however, includes much relating to that year.

An additional source of embarrassment was the expiration of the terms of office of three of its members, all of them being officials of the Board, and this, together with a failure to arrive at a knowledge of the wishes of the Executive in the matter of the vacancies thus occurring, gave rise to perplexity and uncertainty. The expirations of these official terms occurred in midsummer, but no action in regard to them was taken until the following February.

In the most trying period of uncertainty in this respect, the Board debated fully the question of the advisability of surrendering their trust and disbanding the organization, but after maturely considering all the circumstances, concluded that the duty of saving to the public what had been gamed in sanitary legislation only after years of effort should outweigh all personal considerations, and it was unanimously resolved to contribute out of their private means a monthly sum to be applied to meet the current expenses of the work, and continue to do their duty to the extent of their ability, in the hope that the State would eventually recognize the importance of the subject, and grant the necessary support to fulfill the law in all respects.

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