An Act Providing for the Establishment of a Board of Health for the Philippine Islands

July 1, 1901

ACT NO. 157

AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A BOARD OF HEALTH FOR THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

SECTION 1. A Board of Health is hereby created for the Philippine Islands, to be known as the Board of Health for the Philippine Islands.

SECTION 2. The Commission shall appoint:

(a) A Commissioner of Public Health, at a salary of six thousand dollars per year, who shall be duly qualified physician who has taken a doctor's or licentiate's degree in medicine from a reputable medical school;

(b) A Sanitary Engineer, at a salary of three thousand five hundred dollars per year, who shall be the city engineer of Manila;

(c) A Chief Health Inspector, at a salary of three thousand five hundred dollars per year, who shall be a duly qualified physician who has taken a doctor's or licentiate's degree in medicine from a reputable medical school;

(d) A Secretary of the Board of Health, at a salary of two thousand five hundred dollars per year, who shall be a duly qualified physician who has taken a doctor's or licentiate's degree in medicine from a reputable medical school.

SECTION 3. The Board of Health hereby established shall consist of the Commissioner of Public Health, the Chief Health Inspector, the Sanitary Engineer, the Superintendent of Government Laboratories ex officio, and the Secretary of the Board. The Commissioner of Public Health shall be chairman of the Board. The Chief Surgeon of the United States Army in the Philippine Islands, the chief officer of the Marine-Hospital Service in the Philippine Islands, and the president and vice-president of the Association of Physicians and Pharmacists of the Philippine Islands shall be honorary members of the Board, but shall not be entitled to vote. Seasonable notice of all meetings of the Board shall be given to each member.

SECTION 4. (a) The Insular Board of Health shall have general supervision over all the interests of the public health in the Philippine Islands, and shall especially study their vital statistics.

(b) It shall make inquiry and investigation into the causes, pathology, and means of preventing diseases, especially epidemic diseases, including those of domestic animals, together with the sources of mortality and the effects of localities, employments, conditions, habits, foods, beverages, and medicines on the health of the people, and into the chemical composition and medicinal properties of the minero-medicinal waters of the Archipelago.

(c) It shall disseminate useful information upon these and other kindred subjects among the people.

(d) It shall draft and recommend to the central legislative body of the Islands suitable sanitary laws, including laws governing the admittance of persons to the practice of medicine and surgery, pharmacy, dentistry, midwifery, embalming, and undertaking; laws to control offensive and dangerous industries or occupations; and laws for the extension of the service of the Insular Board of Health into the several departments, provinces, and municipalities of the Philippines.

(e) It shall cause to be prosecuted all violations of sanitary laws.

(f) It shall have authority to require all health boards and their officers to forward to the Insular Board of Health copies of all their reports and publications, and such other information in regard to sanitary matters as it may request.

(g) It shall have power to require reports and information concerning any matters with respect to which it may need information for the proper discharge of its duties from all public dispensaries, asylums, hospitals, infirmaries, prisons, penitentiaries, schools, and from the managers, principals, or officers thereof, and from all other public institutions, their officers or managers, and from the proprietors, managers, lessees, and occupants of all places of public resort throughout the Islands, or from common carriers. Refusal to give such information when called for by the Board shall be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars or imprisonment not exceeding three months, or both, in the discretion of the court.

(h) It shall have power and authority to make and enforce regulations for preventing and suppressing contagious or epidemic diseases of man or animals; to abate nuisances endangering the public health; to remove the cause of any special disease or mortality; and to make and enforce such interior quarantine regulations as it shall deem necessary in the city of Manila and all other cities, municipalities, provinces, departments or places where there are no local boards of health officers, and in places where boards of health or health officers exist, but where the sanitary laws or the regulations of the Board are not being carried into effect; and the power conferred upon municipal councils by section thirty-nine, subsections l, m, n, o, p, q, r, and s, of the Municipal Code shall be exercised, subject to the supervision and control of the Insular Board of Health whenever in its opinion the exigency so requires.

(i) It shall have power to engage suitable persons to render any special sanitary service or to make or supervise investigations and examinations requiring expert skill, and to prepare plans or reports relating thereto.

(j) It shall make no contracts and incur no liabilities in excess of the amounts duly appropriated for its use by the central legislative body of the Islands.

(k) It shall decide upon suitable locations for the necessary laboratories for the production of vaccine virus, serums, and prophylactics, and shall recommend the construction of such laboratories to the central legislative body of the Islands. The virus, serums, or prophylactics produced at these laboratories shall be distributed and used under the direction of the Commissioner of Public Health.

SECTION 5. (a) The Commissioner of Public Health shall be the chief executive officer of the Board, and shall exercise general supervision and control over the various branches of its work.

(b) He shall, from time to time, furnish the central legislative body of the Islands lists of the employees necessary properly to carry on the work of the Board, and shall appoint all duly authorized employees, subject to the provisions of the Civil Service Act and of Act Numbered Twenty-five.

(c) He shall prepare quarterly estimates showing the probable expense of properly conducting the work of the Board for the coming three months, and shall submit such estimates to the central legislative body of the Islands as a basis for appropriations.

(d) He shall be empowered to require of the officers of the Board annual reports of their work, and such special reports as he may desire.

(e) Subject to the sanitary laws of the Islands and the regulations of the Board, he shall have direct supervision and control over all hospitals for contagious or infectious diseases. He shall provide for the detection of persons suffering from such diseases and for their isolation until danger of their spreading disease is past. He shall provide for general and systematic vaccination of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands and for their inoculation with serum or prophylactics, should such a course at any time become necessary, and shall have immediate direction of the work of suppressing epidemic diseases of man and domestic animals.

(f) He shall make a written report to the Chief Executive of the Insular Government on or before June thirtieth of each year. This report shall cover the general sanitary condition of the Philippine Islands and the work of the Board and of its officers and agents during the preceding twelve months. It shall also include a statement of all moneys received and of all disbursements made during the same periods.

(g) He shall submit to the Chief Executive of the Insular Government such special reports as occasion may demand, or as the Chief Executive may require.

SECTION 6. Subject to the sanitary laws of the Islands and the regulations of the Insular Board of Health, the Chief Health Inspector shall make or cause to be made, regular inspection of the work of all municipal boards of health; of the work of all employees of the Insular Board of Health; of the cleaning of sewers, streets, walks, alleys, public squares and parks; of the collection and disposition of garbage, dead animals, night soil and contents of cesspools; and of the sanitation of houses, factories, mills, schools, prisons, diaries, markets, meat shops, bakeries, public water supplies, public bath houses, wells, cisterns, cemeteries, undertaking establishments, asylums, jails, barracks, barrooms, theaters, and all public institutions and places of public resort. For this purpose he may enter any of the above-mentioned buildings, institutions, or places of public resort.

SECTION 7. (a) The Sanitary Engineer shall prepare the plans and specifications of all waterworks, drainage or sewer systems, and crematories for the city of Manila, and for disinfecting apparatus or mechanical sanitary apparatus of whatsoever kind for public institutions in the city of Manila, and for alterations in such public works or apparatus. He shall construct or install, or shall supervise the construction or installation of, all such public works or apparatus as may be provided for by law, and they shall not be accepted until he shall certify that the plans adopted by the municipal government have been faithfully carried out.

(b) Upon request of the municipal council of any municipality, he shall consider and report to them upon any plans and specifications for municipal waterworks, drainage, or sewer systems, crematories, disinfecting apparatus, or mechanical sanitary apparatus of any kind which the council may submit to him.

SECTION 8. The secretary of the Insular Board of Health shall keep its records, shall compile its statistics, and shall discharge the other usual duties of secretaries.

 

SECTION 9. The biological and chemical work of the Insular Board of Health shall be carried on in the Government biological and chemical laboratories, either by the regular staffs of those laboratories or by the employees of the Board, as the Commissioner of Public Health may determine.

SECTION 10. This Act shall take effect on its passage.

ENACTED, July 1, 1901.