[Sidenote: Introduction of an Epoch-Making Bill]
On the assembling of the Legislature of 1865 the Metropolitan Health Bill was formally introduced into both houses, and preparations made to secure its passage. Mr. Eaton was selected by the Citizens’ Association to advocate the legal provisions of the bill at the hearings before the committees of the Legislature, and I was delegated to explain the sanitary requirements of the measure. The first hearing occurred on the thirteenth of February, before a joint committee of both houses, Hon. Andrew D. White, senator, presiding. A large audience was present, including the City Inspector and the usual retinue of office holders in his department. The Citizens Association was represented by Rev. Henry W. Bellows, Dr. James R. Wood, Dr. Willard Parker, Prof. John W. Draper, and several other prominent citizens, in addition to Mr. Eaton and myself.
Mr. Eaton first addressed the committee, and made an admirable presentation of the legal features of the bill. He eloquently appealed for its enactment into law, in order to create in New York a competent health authority, with power to relieve the city of its gross sanitary evils and adopt and enforce measures for the promotion of the public health.
I followed him, my task being to show, from the existing condition of the city, the imperative need of such legislation. My remarks on the occasion were published in _The New York Times_ of March 16, 1865.
The illustrations in this chapter, with the frontispiece of the book, have all been reproduced from the elaborate report published by the Council of Hygiene of the Citizens’ Association. My address before the Legislative Committee is here given as it then appeared in _The New York Times_ of March 13, 1865, with the correction of some typographical errors. It consisted of a detailed presentation of the facts recorded and sworn to by the medical inspectors employed by the Citizens’ Association, together with photographic illustrations which were made by them.
Mr. Chairman: I have been requested to lay before you some of the results of a sanitary inspection of New York City, undertaken and prosecuted to a successful completion by a voluntary organization of citizens. There has long been a settled conviction in the minds of the medical men of New York, that that city is laboring under sanitary evils of which it might be relieved. This opinion is not mere conjecture, but it is based upon the daily observations which they are accustomed to make in the pursuit of professional duties.