| 1912 St. Augustine Florida Health Department Rules |
New Health Board Down to Business IMPORTANT RULES WILL BE PUT INTO IMMEDIATE EFFECT Streets Must be Sprinkled Before Being Swept and Other Reforms are to be Observed There are many matters of vital importance to the health of St. Augustine that are coming to the attention of the new city board of health. An interesting session of the board was held last night in the office of the chairman, Dr. A. W. Underwood. An order will be issued by the board to the street department to the effect that streets must be sprinkled before being swept. Several complaints were received from residents of certain streets where the sweeping has been done in the night without the pavement being previously sprinkled so that clouds of dust have found their way into private homes. This is a menace to health that the board does not wish to have continue. An order will also be issued that all street sweepings from that section in the vicinity of Barnard Street be deposited on the garbage dump at the foot of that street. The following important rulings were also adopted: Rule No. 1 – Every physician practicing within the corporate limits of the city of St. Augustine, Fla., who shall visit or attend any patient suffering from cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, pellagra, cerebrospinal meningitis or typhoid fever, shall within twenty-four hours report such case to the board of health. No person or thing liable to propagate a contagious or infectious disease shall be introduced into the city except by the consent of the health board. And when it shall come to the knowledge of any person that such dangerous person or thing has been introduced into the city, such person having the knowledge thereof shall immediately communicate such information to the city health board. No person suffering from a contagious or infectious disease shall be removed from one place to another except by permission of the health board or under the direction of a duly qualified physician. Persons having an infectious or contagious disease and all articles exposed to infection therefrom, shall be immediately isolated, and no person except the attending physician, nurses and spiritual advisor, shall be allowed access to the room containing the affected person. Convalescents from a contagious or infectious disease and their attendants shall not be allowed to leave the premises until all clothing and utensils used in the sick room shall have been properly disinfected. Rule No. 2 – Death Certificates – In the event of death of any human being within the corporate limits of the city of St. Augustine, it shall be the duty of the attending physician, or if no physician be in attendance of the nearest relative, nurse, or attendant to report the same to the city board of health within six hours after such death. This certificate shall be signed by the physician in attendance or, if there be no physician in attendance, by the city physician or the chairman of the health board or, in the case of a newborn child, by the midwife in attendance. Rule No. 3 – Burials and Removals – It shall be unlawful for any undertaker or other person to bury, or to remove from the city, the body of a deceased human being who may have died within the corporate limits of the city of St. Augustine without first securing from the city board of health a burial or removal or transportation permit signed by a member of the health board. This permit shall show the name of the person, place of death, and shall be attached to a regular death certificate. Death certificate and burial permits shall be furnished to all licensed undertakers by the city health board upon request. ...From The St. Augustine Evening Record May 22, 1912 (pg. 1) |