The City Inspector, at that time, was a grossly ignorant politician, but as he had upwards of one million of dollars at his disposal, he had a prevailing influence in the Legislature when any bill affected his interests. At the hearing on the Association’s bill, the City Inspector’s agents denied every allegation as to the unsanitary condition of the city, and as the Association had no definite information as to the facts asserted, the bill failed, as had all the bills of the Sanitary Association during the previous ten years.
[Sidenote: Sanitary Inspection of New York]
In conference it was now decided to make a thorough sanitary inspection of the city by a corps of competent physicians, draft a new and much more comprehensive measure, and thus be prepared to confront the City Inspector with reliable facts in regard to the actual condition of the city. The Citizens’ Association consented to bear the expense of the undertaking.
Under the auspices of the Association, and in the absence of the secretary of the Committee on Health, Dr. Elisha Harris, who was at that time in the service of the United States Sanitary Association, I organized and supervised the inspection. The corps of inspectors consisted of young physicians, each assigned to one of the districts into which the city was divided. The work was completed during the summer months of 1864, and the original reports of the inspectors were bound in seventeen large folio volumes. These reports were afterwards edited by the secretary, Dr. Elisha Harris, and published by the Association in a volume of over 500 pages. The total cost to the Association of this inspection and publication was $22,000; but it richly repaid the Association, for it accomplished the object for which it was undertaken.
This volunteer sanitary inspection of a great city was regarded by European health authorities as the most remarkable and creditable in the history of municipal reform. Too much credit can not be given to the President of the Association, Peter Cooper, and to the Secretary, Nathaniel Sands, for the constant support which they gave the Committee on Health in the prosecution of this great undertaking.
Meantime the Committee on Law perfected a bill to be introduced at the coming session of the Legislature, 1865. It was the joint product of the Medical and Law Committees, and was made the subject of extensive study and research, in order to embody in it every provision essential to its practical operations.