oned and brought before the
Supreme Court for review, and it was held by the judges that the
protection to the community implied is of sufficient importance to
justify its enactment.

For like reason, other restrictions governing the control of contagious
diseases is a function of the police power of the state in which the
rights of the individual must yield to the greater good of the
community. The writer remembers a particularly malignant case of
smallpox where the efforts of the local Board of Health had been
concentrated on the enforcement of quarantine, and where by the aid of
policemen, day and night, it was hoped that the disease was being
confined in the one house; yet, after the death of the patient, and when
apparently efforts for protection might be relaxed, a wake was held in
the house, in the very room of the patient, which might have resulted in
the spread of the disease through the entire town. Regulations,
therefore, covering the conduct of funerals and of burials should be
agreed to, since they are intended to prevent the spread of disease.

_Self-interest the real basis of law._

Many practices which are required by law in cities where the population
is crowded are not required or are not enforced in country districts,
since there the failure to carry out protective measures reacts only on
those immediately concerned. Disinfection of rooms in which contagious
diseases have occurred is one such provision. It rarely happens that a
health officer of a country community concerns himself with seeing that
a case of scarlet fever, for example, is prevented from spreading by a
thorough disinfection of the rooms. That seems to be left to the good
sense of the individual. It is hardly conceivable that a mother with
three or four children (when one child has been sick with a contagious
disease) will neglect ordinary and reasonable precautions to prevent the
spread of that disease to the rest of the family.

It is inconceivable, when the small amount of trouble and expense is
considered, that the parents of a family, after a case of diphtheria,
will neglect to fumigate and disinfect the clothing and bedding which
may be thus infected, particularly if such clothing or bedding is to be
used by other members of the family; and yet instances are recorded
where a child has died of scarlet fever and a year later another child,
perhaps wearing some of the clothes of the previous victim, has been
seized with the disea