Corrected Mortality Among Children, Week Ending November 1, 1913. 2. 9 Week Ending- Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. Sept. Sept. Sept. Sept. Oct. | Oct 16. 23. 30. 6 Includes Small Pox, Measles, Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough. Deaths According to Cause, Annual Rate per 1,000 and Age, with Meteorology and Number of Deaths in Public Institutions for 14 Weeks. Oct Oct. Nov. II. 18. 25. I. 1,237 1,248 1,301 1,153 1,163 1,183 13. 20. 27. 4. Inquest cases.... 7 15 18 14 20 9 5 18 1 I I 2 I I 5 2 212 208 194 182 152 194 164 205 224 181 172 200 Mean barometer. 29.93 29.91 29.99 29.99 29.86 30.06 30.01 30.08 29 98 29.73 30.01 29.86 29.85 29.89 Mean humidity.. 71. 168.00 65.4 62. 69.3 83. 62.7 72. 67.6 73. 85.3 64. 76.3 64. 3.64in 1.08in 0.13in .49in 18in 4.15in .47in 1.18in 1.20in 5.28in 1.13in 1.00in 3.36in .20in ture (Fahr-77.3° 74.9° 72.9 75.1° 72.7 71.9° 64.9° 61.0 63.7° 61.7 66 3 56.7° 55.1° 52.7° DIRECTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH OFFICES Headquarters: S. W. Corner Centre and Walker Streets, Borough of Manhattan Borough of The Bronx, 3731 Third Avenue.. Telephone, 1975 Tremont. Office Hours-9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 12 m. HOSPITALS FOR CONTAGIOUS DISEASES Manhattan-Willard Parker Hospital, foot of East 16th Street. Telephone, 1600 Stuyvesant. Diagnosis Laboratory, Centre and Walker Streets. Telephone, 6280 Franklin. The Bronx-1. 511 East 149th Street. 2. 1354 Webster Avenue. 114 Fulton Avenue, Astoria, L. I. Richmond-1. 689 Bay Street, Stapleton, S. I. CLINICS FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN Manhattan-Gouverneur Slip. Telephone, 2916 Orchard. P. S. 144 Hester and Allen Streets. Telephone, 5960 Orchard. 1249 Herkimer Street. Telephone, 2684 East New York. The Bronx-580 East 169th Street. Telephone, 2558 Tremont, Richmond-689 Bay Street. (Dental only). Telephone, 686 W. Tompkinsville. TUBERCULOSIS CLINICS Manhattan-West Side Clinic, 307 West 33d Street. Telephone, 3471 Murray Hill. Harlem Italian Clinic, 420 East 116th Street. Telephone, 2375 Harlem. Southern Italian Clinic, 22 Van Dam Street. Telephone, 412 Spring. Day Camp, Ferryboat "Middletown," foot of East 91st Street. Telephone, 2957 Lenox. The Bronx-Northern Clinic, St. Pauls Place and Third Avenue. Telephone, 1975 Tremont. Southern Clinic, 493 East 139th Street. Telephone, 5702 Melrose. Brooklyn-Main Clinic, Fleet and Willoughby Streets. Telephone, 4720 Main. Germantown Clinic, 55 Sumner Avenue. Telephone, 3228 Williamsburg. Brownsville Clinic, 64 Pennsylvania Avenue. Telephone, 2732 East New York. Eastern District Clinic, 306 South 5th Street, Williamsburg. Telephone, 1293 Williamsburg. Queens-Jamaica Clinic, 10 Union Avenue, Jamaica. Telephone, 1386 Jamaica. Richmond-Richmond Clinic, Bay and Elizabeth Streets, Stapleton. Telephone, 1558 Tompkinsville. Otisville, Orange County, N. Y. (via Erie Railroad from Jersey City). Telephone, 13 Otisville. M. B. BROWN PRINTING & BINDING Co. 49 TO 57 PARK PLACE, NEW YORK 322-K-13 (B) 2000 All communications relating to the publications of the Department of Health should be addressed to the Commissioner of Health, 149 Centre Street, New York Entered as second class matter May 7, 1913, at the post office at New York, N. Y., NEW SERIES. VOL. II. NOVEMBER 8, 1913. No. 45 MILK BOTTLE ORDINANCE SUSTAINED BY HIGHEST STATE COURT. The Court of Appeals on October 21, 1913, decided that the provision of the Sanitary Code of the City of New York, making it a misdemeanor for any person to "receive or have in his possession" any receptacle used in the transportation and delivery of milk or cream which has not been washed and cleansed immediately after emptying, is to be read "receive and have in his possession," and as thus construed violates no constitutional right and is within the police power of the State. The duty of cleansing the receptacle is cast first upon the person who empties it. If he fails to perform the duty, it then extends to any person into whose possession the uncleansed receptacle subsequently comes. The particular case, which has just been decided by the highest court of the State, originated from the prosecution of certain drivers of a milk company for leaving unwashed milk cans on the platform of a railway station. The case was first tried in the Court of Special Sessions, which found the defendant guilty. An appeal was taken to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of the Court of Special Sessions. Upon final appeal to the highest court of the State, the order and judgment of the Supreme Court has now been affirmed. The decision of the Court of Appeals was handed down by Mr. Justice A. Cuddeback, and reads in part as follows: "The ordinance is challenged by the defendant in this action as being in violation of the constitution, for the reason that the concluding clause thereof prevents the owner of a receptacle, which has contained milk, from reclaiming his property, if the receptacle is unclean. I think that is an unreasonable interpretation to put upon the ordinance. "The object of the enactment is in the highest degree commendable. When the receptacle containing milk is emptied, it quickly becomes foul and offensive, and will breed disease if used again as a milk container without being thoroughly cleansed. Therefore, it is provided that the receptacle must be cleaned immediately after it is emptied. That duty the ordinance first casts upon the person who has emptied the receptacle. If he fails to perform his duty he is subject to the prescribed penalty. Then, in order to make the ordinance effective, it extends the duty of cleansing from the person emptying the receptacle to any person in whose possession it may come. The duty follows the change of pos session. "The word 'receive' in the final clause of the ordinance should not be construed so as to render the bare taking or acceptance of the receptacle unlawful. The words 'nor shall any person receive or have in his possession' should be read 'nor shall any person receive and have in his possession' any such unclean milk receptacle. The idea is to prevent a possession continued beyond the time necessary to do what the ordinance requires. * * "The defendant in this case was employed by a corporation to deliver milk in bottles to its customers, and it was his duty, when on his rounds, to collect the bottles that had been emptied by customers. Empty bottles so collected, and some of them dirty, the defendant on the day in question carried to a railroad depot and left them there upon the freight platform. A short time afterward they were found loaded on a car. The inference is irresistible that the bottles were in the course of transportation to the farm or dairy where the defendant's employer obtained milk. "The defendant's excuse is that the railway platform was the place where he and other milk drivers received milk for distribution, and the place where they returned the empty milk bottles, and that the master employed another servant who assorted the bottles on the railroad platform and sent those that were unclean to a sterilizing plant about three miles distant to be cleansed. If the defendant had taken the bottles directly to the sterilizing plant, probably he would not have been interfered with, but he says to take them there would have made 'too much trouble' for the drivers. The defendant was undoubtedly performing the master's work in the way the master directed, but he is none the less liable on that account. The delivery at the railroad platform evinced at the best an intention on the part of the master to clean the bottles at his convenience and not immediately as the law required. The act was the act of the defendant, and for that he was properly convicted." Justices Gray, Chase and Hogan concurred with Justice Cuddeback, and Chief Justice Cullen concurred in result. Justice Willard Bartlett read a dissenting opinion, which follows, and in which Justice Miller concurred: "It is unnecessary to commend the purpose of municipal legislation designed to insure the purity of milk furnished to the community. Of course the motives which induce such enactments are commendable. But the worthiest of motives does not legalize an unreasonable ordinance. "This enactment forbids the purveyor of milk from resuming possession of the bottles in which the milk has been furnished to the customer unless such bottles have been cleaned before they are taken back. The vendor is not given a reasonable time within which to clean them; he is not given any time at all. If he has such receptacles in his possession which have not been washed after holding milk, he is liable to fine and imprisonment, no matter how short may be the duration of his possession, and although he proceeds to cleanse the bottles with the utmost celerity, he may not receive them if they are unwashed. It seems to me too clear for argument that such an ordinance deprives the milk dealer of his property without any neglect or wrongdoing on his part. He cannot lawfully regain it unless the consumer. over whom he has no legal control, has previously cleansed the receptacle in which the milk was furnished. "No doubt the ordinance could be reconstructed so as to be reasonable. This has been attempted in the prevailing opinion. It is the duty of the court, however, to pass upon the ordinance as it has been framed by those who enacted it. In my judgment, we are without power, however easy it might be, to make a good ordinance instead of a bad one." ELIMINATION OF RAW MILK FROM GRADE B. Holding that the protection of the public health now requires that all milk used in New York City, except certified milk and similar special grades, should be either pasteurized or brought to the boiling point before it is consumed, the Board of Health at its last meeting adopted a resolution forbidding the sale of any raw milk for consumption on the premises, and amended the Sanitary Code and the rules and regulations for the sale of milk to remove from Grade B the class of raw milk which was formerly permitted to be sold under that designation. The effect of this amendment of the milk regulations, which takes effect February 1, 1914, is to limit the |