lands and erect and maintain a hospital for contagious or infectious diseases, provided that it is not to be located within two hundred and fifty feet of any public highway or any dwelling-house or other inhabited dwelling. (Rev. Stats. 1910, p. 2752, Sec. 17); (Laws 1923, Ch. 45.)

In North Dakota each local board of health may provide such temporary hospitals for persons afflicted with infectious or contagious diseases as it judges best and such hospitals are under control and subject to the regulations of the board of health. (Comp. Laws 1913, Sec. 429.)

Ohio vests the management and care of inmates of county infirmaries in the Director of Public Safety, the infirmary or pesthouse to be herein established. (Throckmorton, 1921, Sec. 4089.)

In South Dakota, on application of the board of health. it is lawful for the county commissioners to authorize by ordinance or resolution, the establishing of a pesthouse or detention hospital. (Laws 1919, Ch. 283.)

5. Special County Hospital: Memorial Hospitals. Wyoming provides for the establishment of memorial county hospitals, so-called. On the guaranty of a gift the county commissioners are to appoint a "medical doctor" and to levy a tax sufficient to provide for the maintenance of the hospital. A board of three trustees is to be appointed by the county commissioners to erect, manage, and control the hospital and its fund, for which they are to receive no compensation, their term being from two to five years. Gifts may be accepted, but no county is to maintain more than one county hospital. The keeping of records, etc., is prescribed and pay patients may be received. The title of land is in the county. (Laws 1917, Ch. 88; 1919, Ch. 7 and 89.)

Special acts or provisions may be made applicable to certain counties governing the erection of specified hospitals therein.

6. Township Hospitals. Missouri has authorized townships to erect and maintain buildings for hospital purposes, the procedure being about the same as for county hospitals. (Laws 1923, p. 230.)

(D) Municipal Hospitals

Just as in the case of county hospitals, the municipal hospitals may be established by general or special act of the Legislature or by charter. Some of the statutes read "any county, city, or municipality, "thereby including local authorities under one general enabling act. On the other hand, we may find the special charter provision as in Rhode Island, where by special act the City of Providence is authorized to spend $60,000 for an addition to the tuberculosis ward of the city hospital. (Acts and Resolves 1916, Ch. 1406.) Most of the municipal institutions are general or special in character, dealing with tuberculosis, infectious, contagious diseases, etc. Florida and Missouri provide for municipal insane hospitals.

1. Power to Establish and Maintain. Like the county, the municipality must have specific power granted by the State to erect or maintain an institution used as a hospital. This power is granted in: Alabama, Arizona (?), California, Colorado, Delaware (local board of health may erect temporary wooden hospitals or hold hospitals for the isolation or protection of persons), Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island (City of Providence), South Carolina (the local board of health with the consent of the town or city council), South Dakota (city council or city commissioner of the first or second class), Tennessee, Texas, Utah (?), Vermont (towns), Virginia (towns through special charter provisions), Washington, and West Virginia (cities or towns with a population of not less than 5,000). The provisions vary in the different states; thus, Alabama authorizes the corporate authorities of any town or city and the county to unite to establish hospitals, temporary or permanent, for the reception of the sick or infirm, or of persons suspected of having infectious or contagious diseases. (Code 1907, Sec. 734.) Municipal authorities have the power to issue and sell bonds for the purpose of erecting infirmaries, hospitals, and pesthouses, and for rebuilding, extending, enlarging, or repairing the same. (Gen. Acts 1919, No. 473.)

In California the governing body of municipal corporations of the first class have power to provide for the erection of a municipal hospital and to levy a tax therefor. (Pol. Code 1915, Act 2342.) Special regulations may be applied to certain cities as in Sacramento, where under the health and quarantine regulations, the board of health may provide hospitals for persons afflicted with cholera, smallpox, yellow, typhus, or ship fever. (Same, Sec. 3022.) Every city, county, city and county, etc., is authorized to establish and maintain a tuberculosis ward or hospital for the treatment of persons in the active stages of tuberculosis. (Stats. 1919, Ch. 164.)

In Connecticut, towns, cities, and boroughs may enact by-laws and ordinances "to provide for the medical care and treatment of children of the compulsory school age whose education may be retarded by reason of defective physical condition." (P. A. 1923, Ch. 284.)

Idaho permits any municipal corporation by ordinance or by-law to acquire by purchase or otherwise, hospital grounds, building, and equipment, and maintain and operate the same. (Comp. Stats. 1919, Sec. 3973.) Municipal authorities may, when necessary, provide a hospital for infectious diseases. (Stats. 1919, Ch. 7, Sec. 1667.)

Whenever one hundred legal voters in any incorporated city in Illinois, with a population of less than 10,000, present a petition to the city council asking that a tax not exceeding three and one-half mills on the dollar be levied annually, a special election is held, and if favorable, the tax is levied and collected for the "hospital fund." (Callaghan, 1917-1920, Sec. 1752.) The city council of cities and boards of trustees of villages have the power to "establish and maintain a public sanatorium and branches, dispensaries, and other auxiliary institutions connected with the same within or without the limits of such cities and villages for the care of persons afflicted with tuberculosis, the tax not to exceed one mill on the dollar annually in addition to other taxes. This is not a part of the general tax levy for city or village pur poses and is not to be included in the two per cent assessed valuation upon which taxes are required to be extended. (Laws 1923, p. 266.) In case the hospital tax has been levied and collected for three or more years and the city has not

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established or maintained a hospital according to the provisions of the act, the mayor, with the approval of the city council, may authorize the payment of all funds derived from such tax "to any non-sectarian public hospital, within the limits of the city, maintained for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of such city and any person falling sick or being injured or maimed within its limits." The funds are to be under the control of the hospital and to be used only for its maintenance. The funds thereafter shall be turned over to the hospital until the city council, by ordinance, approved by the majority of electors voting thereon at a general or special election, provide otherwise. A semi-annual report of funds received from the city hospital tax is to be rendered by the hospital to the city council. (Laws 1923, p. 172.)

In Iowa the council of a city of 5,000 or more, the city manager, or the commission governed cities, may by resolution submit to the qualified electors at a city or special election the question of whether there shall be a tax levied for hospitals. (Code 1913, Sec. 741-G; Supp. 1915, Sec. 1056.)

The provisions vary widely as to wording, grants of power, bond issues, tax assessments, etc. Most of the laws are permissive, except perhaps in the provision for contagious disease hospitals, as in Maine or Massachusetts, the latter requiring each city to establish and be constantly provided within its limits with one or more isolation hospitals for the reception of persons having smallpox or other disease dangerous to the public health, but such hospitals are not to be established within one hundred rods of an inhabited dwelling house situated in an adjoining town, without the consent of such town. (R. L. 1902, Ch. 75.) Each city in Massachusetts is to provide treatment, either in a hospital or as out-patients, of indigent persons who are suffering from contagious or infectious venereal disease. (Same, Sec. 39.) Cities or towns having isolation hospitals may receive persons from adjoining towns on approval of the board of health. (Supp. 1908.)

No city or county in Minnesota is to establish a tuberculosis sanitarium, pesthouse, hospital, or detention home in any village without first making application for license to the village council, giving proposed location, plans, specifications, and other information required by the council, nor until the

village has granted a license for its erection and maintenance. The council is to consider this license within ten days after the request has been filed and may regulate the location, require changes in the plans, to protect the health

and safety of the inhabitants. (S. L. 1923, Ch. 237.)

Nebraska gives cities and villages 1,000 to 5,000, and 200 to 1,500, power to erect, establish, and regulate hospitals and to provide for the government and support of the same. Special charter provisions relate to certain cities. (Ann. Stats. 1911, Secs. 8841, 8060.)

In New York a hospital, camp, or other institution for the treatment of tuberculosis is not to be established until after hearing before the State Commissioner of Health. (1909, Consol. Laws, Sec. 319.) This Commissioner from time to time is to submit to the authorities of the several municipalities recommendations as to the establishment of hospitals for contagious disease. (N. Y. Supp. 1913, p. 2047.)

II. PRIVATE HOSPITALS

(A) Private vs. Public Hospitals

The private hospital is distinguished from the public hospital by the fact that it is not publicly owned and operated, but is, on the contrary, owned and operated by private individuals or a private concern. "A hospital founded by a private benefactor is, in point of law, a private corporation, although dedicated by its charter to general charity when the corporation is said at the bar to be public, it is not merely meant that the whole community may be the proper objects of the bounty, but that the government has the sole right," as trustees of the public interests, to regulate, control, and direct the corporation, its funds, and its franchises, at their own good will and pleasure. (1895, Washingtonian Home vs. Chicago, 157 Ill. 414, 41 N. E. 893.)

A hospital, private in character, may be operated and maintained for charitable purposes or for profit. "A charity, in a legal sense, may be defined as a gift to be applied, consistently with existing laws, for the benefit of an indefinite number of persons, either by bringing their hearts under the influence of education or religion, by relieving their bodies