ABSTRACT
Smith re-entered public health in 1878. He prepared a bill to form a strong national health board, but other public health leaders and Congressional legislators created an advisory body, a model he knew would not succeed. Smith was a member of the new National Board of Health when it began in 1879, but he was also completing his textbook, Manual of the Principles and Practice of Operative Surgery, which introduced the concept of the surgical handbook. One of his first National Board tasks was to get a state board of health law for New York, which he did in 1880, following eight years of failed attempts by others. Smith turned his attention to smallpox, which re-appeared with an immigrant surge. In the fall of 1881, he delivered a prescient report on quarantine laws that remains relevant today.
