Section 22-2-2

State Board of Health - Authority and jurisdiction.

The State Board of Health shall have authority and jurisdiction:

(1) To exercise general control over the enforcement of the laws relating to public health.

(2) To investigate the causes, modes or propagation and means of prevention of diseases.

(3) To investigate the influence of localities and employment on the health of the people.

(4) To inspect all schools, hospitals, asylums, jails, theatres, opera houses, courthouses, churches, public halls, prisons, stockades where convicts are kept, markets, dairies, milk depots, slaughter pens or houses, railroad depots, railroad cars, street railroad cars, lines of railroads and street railroads (including the territory contiguous to said lines), industrial and manufacturing establishments, offices, stores, banks, club houses, hotels, rooming houses, residences and other places of like character, and whenever insanitary conditions in any of these places, institutions or establishments or conditions prejudicial to health, or likely to become so, are found, proper steps shall be taken by the proper authorities to have such conditions corrected or abated.

(5) To examine the source of supply, tanks, reservoirs, pumping stations and avenues of conveyance of drinking water, and whenever these waters are found polluted or conditions are discovered likely to bring about their pollution, proper steps shall be taken by proper authorities to improve or correct conditions.

(6) To adopt and promulgate rules and regulations providing proper methods and details for administering the health and quarantine laws of the state, which rules and regulations shall have the force and effect of law and shall be executed and enforced by the same courts, bodies, officials, agents and employees as in the case of health laws, and a quorum, as provided for by the constitution of the medical association of the State of Alabama, shall be competent to act.

(7) To exercise supervision and control over county boards of health and over county health officers and county quarantine officers in the enforcement of the public health laws of the state in their respective counties, and whenever any such county board of health, county health officer or county quarantine officer shall fail or refuse to discharge its or his duties, said duties may be discharged by the State Board of Health until proper arrangements are made to insure their discharge by said county board of health or said county health officer or said county quarantine officer, as the case may be.

(8) To act as an advisory board to the state in all medical matters and matters of sanitation and public health.

(Code 1907, §702; Acts 1919, No. 658, p. 909; Code 1923, §1051; Acts 1927, No. 640, p. 774; Code 1940, T. 22, §7; Acts 1965, No. 796, p. 1496, §2.)