at Large, 484,) and the state boards of health created by the legislatures of most of the states. Local boards of health are charged with more direct and immediate means of securing the public health, and exercise inquisitorial and executive powers in relation to sanitary regulations, offensive nuisances, markets, adulteration of food, slaughterhouses, drains and sewers, and similar subjects. Such boards are constituted in most American cities either by general law, by their charters, or by municipal ordinance, and in England by the statutes, 11 & 12 Vict. ce. 63, and 21 & 22 Vict. c. 98, and other acts amending the same. See Gaines v. Waters, 64