<p>This film explains the history of the Public Health Service (PHS) beginning with the 1798 Act of Congress.
</p><p>Medical subjects include prevention of: smallpox, cholera, typhus fever, bubonic plague, yellow fever, trachoma, malaria, leprosy, and venereal disease. Prevention shown includes: maritime quarantine; insecticide spraying of people and baggage; health inspection of immigrants; rat extermination; inspection of drinking water on planes, trains, ships, and towns, especially during floods; and inspections of canneries and sea food.
</p><p>Other duties shown include: health care to penal institutions, native Alaskans, and veterans; world health communication including annual conferences of state and territorial health officers, the Pan American Conference on Health, and worldwide emergency procedures to alert the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) in Washington, D.C. of suspected serious communicable disease.
</p><p>Shots include: the Surgeon General of the United States; Dr. John McMullen speaking about his 1912 survey on trachoma; charts showing the spread of disease; and exteriors: of the leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana; the 1st Marine Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia; and the Marine Hospital in Stapleton, New York.
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In addition, the film shows health inspectors on tug boats; a rat guard being tested by a rat on the ship's tie line; patients in hydrotherapy and de-lousing stations; malarial chill patient; prison inmates in mosquito-borne disease testing; dramatization of Civil War wounded; one-day's catch of rats of a large city; emergency water testing equipment, flood footage including unsafe drinking practices; testing labs; huge metal equipment for de-lousing large amounts of baggage at once; dust testing in factories; whole body tent equipment on venereal disease patient with fan blowing on the patient's face; dental and X-ray equipment; physical and eye exams; patient taken off a large ship and loaded into an ambulance; and a list of all the PHS men and women who have contracted diseases and died in the line of duty.
U.S. Public Health Service
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