The enormous influence which this reform has had upon the health and domestic life of the people can never be estimated. A reference to the former and present sickness and death-rates of New York enables us to approximate the vast saving of life and consequent prevention of sickness and human misery that has resulted from health laws founded on the Metropolitan Law and intelligently but rightly enforced. Before the passage of that law the annual death-rate of the city fluctuated between 28 and 40 per 1,000 population; since that law went into effect it has steadily fallen until it has reached the low figure of fifteen to the thousand, or a saving of more than twenty thousand lives annually when the population of New York was only about one million, and of nearly 10,000 lives of the present population. If we extend this estimate to the whole country, of ninety-five million people, we may gain a faint conception of the inestimable benefits which the application of sanitary knowledge to the daily life of a people can accomplish. VI THE LEGAL WORK OF DORMAN BRIDGEMAN EATON The following chapter consists of the address delivered by Dr. Stephen Smith on the occasion of the memorial service of Hon. Dorman B. Eaton, January 21, 1899. We have inserted it immediately following his historic review of the events which led up to the great public health reform of 1865–1866, not only because it is a fitting tribute to the memory of one to whom the citizens of New York are indebted for many improvements in the administration of the municipal government, but because it brings together in one compact perspective the legal and sanitary requirements of modern preventive medicine.--F. A. [Sidenote: Unrecognized Pioneers] The progress of the race is largely affected in each generation by a few pioneers who, with toil and sacrifice, prepare the way for the advance. Of these pioneers some blaze the future course in the unexplored and trackless forest; others remove the obstructions which impede the builders; while a few expert engineers bridge the rivers, tunnel the mountains and lay broad and deep the foundations of the great highway along which humanity passes to a higher civilization. Unfortunately these pioneers are not always known to public fame, and far too often, though benefactors of their race, pass away without a proper recognition of their services.