Should Political Violence Be Addressed Like a Threat to Public Health?
One inspector noted that, in his assigned district, refuse filled gutters, blocked sewage culverts, and sent forth “perennial emanations which generate pestiferous disease.” Another observed that certain streets better resembled “dung-hills rather than the thoroughfares in a civilized city.” In response to the report, state lawmakers introduced legislation that led to the establishment, in 1866, of the Metropolitan Board of Health, one of the country’s first municipal public-health authorities.