The fact that President Taft, during the rush incident to the first few weeks of his administration, has taken a business-like initiative in an effort to secure a satisfactory national public health policy is a comforting reassurance to the friends of that movement. This step on the part of the President can not, however, be a matter of surprise to the readers of The Journal who, from time to time, have been advised of his active interest in great sanitary and scientific problems that have come under his administrative supervision.
In the Philippines, he not only placed sanitation on a strong footing, but established original scientific investigation and general medical education on a firmer governmental foundation than obtains in any of the states. The moment that he, as Secretary of War, took charge of the affairs in the Isthmian Canal Zone, the sanitary administration was for the first time given