The struggle and final triumph of the people of New York, in their efforts to secure adequate health protection, were national in their influence. And this influence was emphasized by the first acts of the Metropolitan Board. Scarcely had it organized when cholera made its appearance in New York. There was the usual alarm among the people, and large numbers left the city. But the new health laws and ordinances, administered by an intelligent, scientific authority, demonstrated the _raison d’être_ of their existence. The first case of cholera was promptly isolated, the house and its surroundings cleansed and disinfected, and rigid supervision established. The second case, which appeared in another part of the city, was treated in a similar manner and with the same results. A third, fourth, fifth, and finally many cases appeared in different parts of the city during the season, apparently brought from localities in the vicinity where the epidemic prevailed with its usual severity; but in New York no two cases occurred in the same place, so effectually was each case treated. Within one month public confidence in the power of the board to control the spread of the disease was firmly established; people who had fled returned to their homes; business in commercial districts, which was at first suspended, was resumed; and the health department became the most popular branch of the city government, a position which it has maintained uninterruptedly for nearly half a century. [Sidenote: The Reform National in Its Results] This popular triumph of sanitation is largely due to the perfection of the original Metropolitan Law, which has been declared, officially and judicially, to be the most complete piece of health legislation ever placed on the statute books. From that fountain of legal lore the whole country has been supplied with both the principles and the details of sanitary legislation. The agitation in New York rapidly extended over the entire country, and other cities secured the necessary authority, the Metropolitan Law being the basis of such health legislation. Within a decade nearly every municipality in the land had its health laws and sanitary ordinances and a competent authority to enforce them.