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Title

Series consists of

3 lower level description(s)

Arrangement structure

Series part of

Department of Agriculture fonds [multiple media] (R194-0-2-E)

Bilingual equivalent

Direction de la quarantaine et de la santé publique [document textuel]

Date(s)

1854-1912

Place of creation

No place, unknown, or undetermined

Extent

Language of material

English

Scope and content

Series consists of records created and maintained by the Quarantine and Public Health Branch of the Department of Agriculture. The sub-series contains minute books and correspondence.

Conditions of access

Terms of use

Copyright belongs to the Crown.

Additional name(s)

Canada. Dept. of Agriculture. Quarantine and Public Health Branch. Dept. of Agriculture. Quarantine and Public Health Branch.

Biography / Administrative history

In the pre-Confederation period, the connection with immigration led to responsibility for enforcement of quarantine regulations and, when epidemics occurred, for public health generally. When a cholera epidemic threatened the province in 1854, a Central Board of Health was established to coordinate the efforts of local boards of health and to report to the Minister of Agriculture (Geoffrey Bilson, A Darkened House, pp. 132-134).

As formally constituted by statute in 1868, the post-Confederation Department of Agriculture was responsible for quarantine and public health (31 Vic., Chap. 53). In 1869 new federal quarantine legislation was passed, the Animal Contagious Diseases Act, taking as its core the pre-Confederation legislation of 1865. It established procedures for quarantine and inspection, and for the destruction of diseased animals (32-33 Vic., Chap. 37). Public health functions were extended to include the compilation and publication of public health statistics for eleven cities in 1882 (Annual Report, 1882, xliii-xliv). During the 1890s the Department began to perform the functions of a public health information centre. Reports and statistics were collected from all over the world on diseases, epidemics, and new medical developments. A summary of the information collected was published each year in the report of the Director General of Public Health, published in the Department's Annual Report. Administrative responsibility for quarantine and public health was assigned to the new Department of Immigration and Colonization in 1918 (Annual Report, 1918-1919, pp. 3-4). RG17 General Inventory

Additional information

Source

Government

MIKAN no.

156278