The council shall have authority to ordain and enforce such regulation within said city, as shall be necessary or proper to preserve the health of the inhabitants of said city, and to secure them from disease; to require and compel the abatement and removal of all nuisances within said city, at the expense of the person or persons causing the same, or of the owner or owners of the ground whereon the same shall be; to prevent or regulate slaughter houses within said city; or the exercise of any offensive or unhealthy business, trade or employment therein; to prevent the keeping of any stale meats, fish, vegetables or other matter, or depositing the same, or dirt, rubbish, or offal, upon any lot, street, alley or square within said city, or upon the banks of any streams within the limits thereof.
The mayor, by and with the consent of the council, shall in the month of July, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Thirteen, and in said month of every second year thereafter, appoint a suitable person, who shall be practicing physician, as health commissioner, whose term of office shall be for two years, and until his successor is appointed and qualified. The members of the council, the mayor, city attorney and health commissioner shall comprise the board of health of said city. The health commissioner shall be charged with the duty of enforcing all quarantine regulations and of all regulations for keeping the streets, roads, alleys and sidewalks of the City, and all premises therein, in a sanitary condition. He shall be authorized to enter all houses, or
other places, public or private, at all times, in the discharge of his duties, in improving and maintaining the sanitation of the city and the prevention and suppression of disease, and he shall have the power and be required to carry into effect all of the provisions of Section Twenty-four of this act relating to the abatement of nuisances, under such regulations as the council may by ordinance prescribe. He shall be authorized to do all acts and make all regulations that may be necessary or expedient for the promotion of health and the prevention and suppression of disease; he shall have the right to inspect all wells, cisterns and water supplies in said city and to prohibit the use thereof if necessary in his judgment to prevent or suppress disease; he shall have the right to inspect all milk, meat, fish, oysters, vegetables and all other food stuff displayed or offered for sale in said city and to make such rules and regulations touching the preparation, display, delivery and sale thereof, as he may deem prudent, necessary and proper for cleanliness and the prevention and suppression of disease, and he shall perform such other duties as may be prescribed by the council, and shall have the exercise all of the powers and duties conferred upon the county board of health. He shall give public notice, in such manner as he may deem necessary, of any rule or regulation promulgated by him under this act, and any person, firm or corporation who shall violate the same, after proclamation thereof, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars, and for a second offense may be confined in jail not more than thirty days. Every practicing physician shall forthwith report to th health commissioner every infectious or contagious disease which he is called upon to treat within said city; and if any such physician shall fail to make such report within one day after he has discovered such infectious or contagious disease, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars. The City Clerk, in his capacity of police judge, shall have jurisdiction of all offenses hereunder.
The council shall have authority to provide, under the supervision of the health commissioner, proper vaccine serum, whenever an epidemic of smallpox is threatened, and the health commissioner shall vaccinate any applicant upon the payment to him of such fee as the council shall by ordinance prescribe, and he shall thereupon issue a certificate to the patient showing his vaccination. And the council may, in like manner, in any proper case, provide antitoxin lymph or serum for immunizing against or preventing the spread of diphtheria, typhoid fever, meningitis, or other infectious or contagious disease or epidemic, and may furnish the same free to indigent persons.