AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.


late the world by their ravages and to impede by their perturbations
the development of international relations.  Importance has been at-
tached in this connection to the necessity of generally adopting the most
suitable remedies, in order to preserve mankind from the attacks of this
scourge and of making known new preventive measures which are
recommended by experience. The need has been felt at the same time
of the adoption by the countries interested of obligatory arrangements,
having for their object the introduction of perfect conformity in the
measures to be taken in order to guard against this common danger;
the need has also been felt of concentrating and thereby strengthening
the means of guarding against the inroads of these maladies and of re-
moving not only the confusion which has gradually invaded the domain
of the hygienic principles which prevail in regard to these epidemics,
and to the barriers which are erected against them, but also their causes,
which but too often create disturbances in commercial transactions.
   The continual development of commercial relations among the differ-
 ent countries, and the variety of means of communication whereby com-
 merce is carried on, daily prove the advantage, the utility, nay, even
 the necessity of adopting identical rules for the government of these re-
 lationsand of sanctioning the same by international conventions. Long
 experience shows the advantage of such arrangements. If the free ex-
 ercise of territorial sovereignty is in a manner restricted by conventions
 of this kind, it cannot be doubted that the advantage which each country
 will derive therefrom will be far more than sufficient to counterbalance
 this inconvenience, which is only apparent. Practice shows, moreover,
 the great disadvantages which result, for instance, in the domain of
 public hygiene, from the divergence of the principles according to which
 it is sought to arrest, in the various countries, the general epidemics
which
 are propagated from one country to another, under the tutelage, so to speak,
 of these principles. This truth has, since 1866, been recognized by the
 governments which were represented at the international sanitary con-
 ference held at Constantinople, to which were assigned for examination
 questions similar to those which the imperial and royal government pro-
 poses to solve, an object analogous to that which the said government
 desires to attain. Men of science, of high standing and ability, did not
 hesitate, during the deliberations of said conference, to proclaim the
 very views which the imperial and royal government now seeks to pro-
 mote., The conclusions reached by that conference were highly valuable,
 and possess perhaps but one defect, that of never having been put into
 practice. The point then, is to-day, in this order of ideas, to revise,
to a
 certain extent at least, the deliberations held and the decisions reached
 at Constantinople, to verify and complete them by the ideas and the ex-
 perience which have been acquired, and, above all, to secure their en-
 forcement, and to this effect, to provide for an international 'sanitary
 convention which shall satisfy all the demands of the present situation,
 and at which all the countries interested shall be represented.
 The imperial and royal government has thought that it ought not to
 be indifferent to the'se demands, which have quite recently been urgently
 renewed, as is shown by the resolutions of the third international medical
 congress, which met at Vienna last year. Induced by these considera-
 tions, it has addressed the powers interested for the purpose of inquiring
 whether they are disposed to send delegates to an international sanitary
 conference, to be held at Vienna, for the purpose of deliberating and de-
 ciding upon certain questions looking to a reform of the international
 sanitary service. It has the satisfaction of knowing that the initiative
taken by it has been everywhere hailed with lively satisfaction, and


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