HIGHER COURT DECISIONS.

Important Ruling on Question of Vaccination

The Supreme Court, in a decision affirming the judgment in the case of Frank D. Blue against Fannie D. Beach and Orville E. Conner, given yesterday, held that the children of parents who refuse to have them vaccinated may be excluded from the public schools during an epidemic of smallpox. In the fall of 1893, during the smallpox scare at Terre Haute, the local Board of Health and the school authorities ordered that no person should attend the public schools unless vaccinated. Blue, who had refused to have his boy vaccinated brought suit to restrain the teacher and principal from excluding his boy from school. The case dragged along in the Circuit Court for nearly three years and a decision was finally rendered in favor of the defendants. Bloom appealed to the Supreme Court in 1896 and the decision was not handed down until yesterday.

“Higher Court Decisions,” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana), 2 February 1900, p. 6, col. 4; digital image, Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ : accessed 6 December 2014).

THE COURT RECORD

SUPREME COURT

18004. Blue vs. Beach. Vigo C.C. Affirmed. Jordan, J. – 1. The preservation of the public health is one of the duties devolving upon the State. 2. The State boards of health are created as an instrumentality to secure and promote the public health, and are invested with power to adopt ordinances, by-laws, rules and regulations necessary to carry out the object of their creation and organization, and the powers conferred upon them receive from the courts a liberal construction. 3. Boards of health adopt rules or by-laws by virtue of legislative authority, and such rules or by-laws within their respective jurisdictions have the force and effect of a law of the Legislature. 4. Whatever laws or regulations are necessary to protect the public health and secure public comfort is a legislative question, and appropriate measures intended and calculated to accomplish these ends are not subject to judicial review. 5. The powers granted to boards of health by statute to adopt rules, by-laws and regulations reasonably adapted to carry out the purpose or object for which they are created is not an improper delegation of legislative authority within the meaning of the Constitution. 6. In order to prevent the spread of smallpox in case of an emergency on account of danger of the disease spreading, the board of health of a city may prevent any unvaccinated child from attending the public school, or close the school temporarily during the emergency.

“The Court Record,” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana), 2 Feburary 1900, p. 6, col. 5; digital image, Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ : accessed 6 December 2014).