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Report of the Division of Distribution of Biological Products,.

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Field Inspection (Improvement of Watersheds, General Sanitation),.
Epidemics,

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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,

Department of Health,

State Capitol, Harrisburg,

February 1, 1915.

To His Excellency, Martin G. Brumbaugh, Governor of Pennsylvania:

Sir: The Act of Assembly by which the Department of Health was created prescribed that the Commissioner shall annually report on the vital statistics and sanitary conditions and prospects of the State, and set forth the action of the Department and of its officers and agents, and the names thereof during the past year Such a report for the year 1914, being my ninth annual report, I have now the honor to transmit. Other work done by me as a servant of the State in positions which I have held ex officio (State Quarantine Board, Water Supply Commission, Dental Council, and Bureau of Medical Education and Licensure) is given in the reports made by these bodies respectively.

SAMUEL G. DIXON, Commissioner of Health.

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NINTH ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH

OF THE

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.

As Commissioner of Health for this Commonwealth of Pennsylania I can assure you it is gratifying to me to submit this, my Ninth Annual Report of my activities as executive of this Department and as a servant of a people who have through their members of the General Assembly and the Governor appropriated more money to health than any other state of the Union. The responsibilities are necessarily commensurate with the means that have been provided to carry on this work upon which the prosperity of the State and the happiness of the people so largely depend.

ORGANIZATION.

The year 1914 has brought numerous changes in many of the Divisions of the Department of Health. A full enumeration of those who held positions in the past twelve months will appear below. Concerning some of the changes a brief comment may be made.

On the first of March the death of Dr. Paul A. Hartman deprived the Department of the services of one of its most efficient County Medical Inspectors. He was born at Lebanon, December 24, 1850, as the son of the late John Joseph and Wilhelmina Steever Hartman. Later the family lived for a time in Lycoming County, but when young Hartman was nearly fourteen they removed to Harrisburg. After attending the public schools, Paul Hartman studied in the State Normal School at Kutztown, and was then enrolled as a student of Dickinson College. His medical studies were begun under the direction of the late Dr. Robert F. Seiler, and later continued in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, where he took his degree in 1874. He at once established himself as a practitioner at Harrisburg and there he continued to practise the rest of his life, almost forty years.

When the State Board of Health made a new inspection district by joining Cumberland and Adams Counties with Franklin and Perry, the "Susquehanna District," thus reduced to Dauphin, Lancaster, and York Counties, was placed in charge of Dr. Hartman, his appointment being made July 13, 1887. In this office he continued to serve until early in 1895 when the system of County Medical Inspectors was adopted by the Board and Dr. Hartman accepted an appointment as Medical Inspector of Dauphin County. When the new Department of Health was established in 1905, many of these County Medical Inspectors were retained in the, new organization, among them Dr. Hartman. In July, 1907, I began the development of our system of State Tuberculosis Dispensaries, purposing ultimately to establish at least one in each county. At first we had to feel our way, and progress was slow; consequently it was not until the end of March, 1908, that the Dispensary in Harrisburg could be opened. I placed Dr. Hartman in charge of this work and under his direction the Dispensary produced good results.

Dr. Hartman was well known to the community in which he lived, and enjoyed a reputation as a diagnostician in skin diseases, especially in cases of smallpox. He was esteemed by his professional brethren as "a man whose word was as good as his bond." He was a member of the Dauphin County Medical Society, its President in 1885, and for twenty-one years its Secretary. On two occasions he was sent as a delegate to the meeting of the American Medical Association. He was also a member of the Harrisburg Academy of Medicine, and of the staff of the Harrisburg Hospital, and for some years he served the County as physician to the County Prison, and also the city in various official capacities.

On the last day of February, 1914, in the midst of his work at the Dispensary, Dr. Hartman was stricken. Such was his condition that removal to his home was quite out of the question, and there in the Dispensary he lingered until the afternoon of the next day when the end came.

Late in the year the Department lost the services of another County Medical Inspector by the death of Dr. Bonbrake in the Markleton Hospital, on the twenty-second of November. Henry X. Bonbrake was born in Washington Township, Franklin County, March 31, 1843, the son of Daniel and Margaret (Stoner) Bonbrake, He was educated at what was then Mercersburg College, and began the study of medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. J. J. Oellig and later of Dr. James Brotherton, both of Mercersburg. In the spring of 1865 he graduated from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York, and presently began practice in Leitersburg, Maryland.

Here he remained but a short time and then removed to

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