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STATE LABORATORY OF HYGIENE

W. D. STOVALL, DIRECTOR, PROFESSOR OF HYGIENE

The State Laboratory of Hygiene, located in the Service Memorial In-
stitutes Building on the university campus, is at once a university labora-
tory and the central laboratory for the State Board of Health. The staff
is occupied in teaching, in the development of laboratory tests which are of
assistance in the diagnosis and control of communicable diseases, in other
laboratory procedures with which sanitary science is concerned, and in
special investigation.

Last year 54,481 specimens for the diagnosis of diphtheria, typhoid
fever, anthrax, rabies, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and other diseases
were received from physicians, health officers, public health nurses, and
others throughout the state. The facilities of the laboratory are used by
three-fourths of the physicians in the state. Prophylactic vaccines are dis-
tributed free from the laboratory, and silver nitrate ampules are prepared
for free distribution by the State Board of Health.

For the convenience of physicians and health officers, cooperative lab-
oratories have been established in Beloit, Green Bay, Kenosha, Oshkosh,
Rhinelander, Superior, and Wausau. The state contributes a portion of the
funds required for the operation of each of these laboratories, and the
respective cities supply the remainder. These branch laboratories are un-
der the supervision of the director of the State Laboratory of Hygiene,
acting for the State Board of Health.

The principal work of both the central and the branch laboratories is
in the development and improvement of procedures and new methods for
diagnosing, preventing, and controlling communicable diseases, and in the
dissemination of information of this sort into every community of the state,
thereby directly or indirectly touching the welfare of every citizen.

UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU

ERIc R. MILLER, METEOROLOGIST IN CHARGE

The University of Wisconsin has cooperated with the national weather
services throughout its history. The first meteorological observations at
Madison were made by Professors S. H. Carpenter and J. W. Sterling for
the Smithsonian Institution from 1853 to 1864. The services of students
were enlisted in the making of these observations, and the names of John
Muir and James L. High and other distinguished alumni are found in the
meteorological journals kept at Madison. The observations were revived in
1869 by Professor W. W. Daniells, the pioneer professor of agriculture at
the University. The Signal Corps, U. S. Army, carried on the observations
at Madison from October 1878 to April 1883. On the termination of this
governmental office, its instruments were turned over to the Washburn
Observatory where the observations were continued until December 1904.

The demands of the public for weather information had become too
heavy to be met by the astronomical observatory, so that in September 1904
a branch of the national weather bureau was again established at Madison,
in North Hall, where the original observations had been begun 51 years
earlier.

This office is fully equipped with standard apparatus, and receives tele-
graphic reports twice daily. Daily forecasts and weather bulletins are dis-
tributed to the press and, to aviators, and are mailed to the public in central
and southwestern Wisconsin. The office is open to the public from 9 a. m.
to 4 p. m. daily, except Sundays and holidays.

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