The Executive Committee presents to the Council of Hygiene and Public Health of the Citizens' Association the following condensed summary of the progress, methods, and present condition of the several departments of sanitary inquiry that have been directed by the Council through this Committee, since the commencement of its work in the spring of 1864.

The Council having become permanently organized during the month of April, its Executive Committee was directed to prepare and put into operation a system of sanitary inquiry that should extend throughout the entire length and breadth of the city. This task was required of the Committee as the first step in the initiatory duty of the Council, as an advisary body to the Citizens' Association, and also in view of the demand for sanitary improvements and the protection of the public health in the city.

To acquire information that should be sufficiently reliable and definite upon the various subjects relating to the sanitary condition of every portion of the city and its population, was, therefore, the first duty of the Council and of its Executive Committee.

With the approbation and support of the Citizens' Association, that had invited this undertaking, a system of sanitary inspection was devised and put into operation as soon as practicable. The special inspection of "fever-nests and insalubrious quarters" was commenced early in the month of May; but the ultimate maturing of plans, the districting of the entire city, and the selection and organization of a competent corps of sanitary inspectors, were not fully accomplished until the middle of July.

It was the unanimous opinion that the basis of sanitary reforms must be prepared by means of a thorough and systematic sanitary inspection by competent experts. By such inquiry it is that we can learn and properly judge of the existence and nature of the causes of the diseases that are avoidable and preventable. By this means their locality, their origin, the laws that govern their operation, together with the measures best adapted for their removal or prevention, must be ascertained.

This important work of inspection was, of course, intrusted to physicians who had already acquired valuable experience in the service of the public dispensaries and medical charities of the city.