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49
The President expressed his willingness to support a proposition
to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. The Bill
was strongly opposed on the second reading, and the House
having been counted out the measure was dropped for the
Session. Prior to the reception of the deputation, the
President had received a so-called "Vigilance Association,"
which desired to enlist his influence in opposition to the Bill,
on the ground of its interference with the "liberty of the
subject," indifferent or oblivious to the fact, that the most
democratic communities are precisely those which are the
most stringent in exercising such interference with individual
liberty when it is necessary for the general good. The
President subsequently received the Parliamentary Bills
Committee of the British Medical Association, who urged
"That the local authorities should not have the power of
imposing the duty of compulsory notification on medical
practitioners." The Committee in taking this step, was
acting upon a resolution carried, at the Jubilee Meeting
of the Association, held at Worcester in 1882, to the
effect:—
"That this meeting earnestly desires compulsory notification of infectious
diseases, but it wishes to express its opinion that the compulsion to
notify should be placed upon the householder, as his duty as a citizen,
and not upon the doctor."
Urgently as compulsory notification may be required, it is
probable we shall have to wait for a more settled state of
political affairs before the Government can be expected to
deal with the subject. Meanwhile it is well to be reminded
that the Sanitary Authorities of London have expressed
themselves unequivocally in favour of the principle of notification,
and with pardonable satisfaction it may be mentioned
that their action was taken under the lead of your
Vestry.*
* Vide Annual Report for 1882, page 69 et seq.