AN UNREASONABLE HEALTH OFFICIAL.

A health officer of Detroit is reported as having refused to permit the remains of a person who had died of consumption to be taken into church for the funeral. We do not know all the circumstances, but, as reported, it certainly was a case of overdoing on the part of, to all appearances, an inexcusably ignorant official. If instead of a dead consumptive in a coffin, it had been a living coughing one, his procedure would have been more rational, though even then hardly justifiable. In the present general scare about tuberculosis there is very much that is altogether unreasonable, and health officials and physicians should be among the last to unduly encourage it. We are constantly increasing our list of contagious diseases, but the mortality from them will not be appreciably lessened by exaggerating their dangers. Fear is a very appreciable factor in increasing mortality, and serious mischief