The opening session of the sixty-sixth annual meeting of the
British Medical Association was held in Edinburgh on Tuesday evening, Sir T. Grainger Stewart giving the inaugural address. Naturally enough, the president spoke strongly of our slackness in the enforcement of the Vaccination Laws. In Germany, where the law was strictly enforced, small-pox had almost disappeared. One of the great blots on the present Bill was that it proposed nothing in the way of revaccination. Yet a compulsory repetition of the process virtually secures complete immunity. Sir T. Stewart went on to ask whether, in favouring the so-called conscien- tious objector, the House of Commons was itself acting conscientiously, or merely afraid of a noisy minority. In this matter, he asked, is it not to be feared that the House of Commons has decided contrary to its own belief ? " There must be but few Members who do not believe in vaccination, and would not desire to see it insisted upon. Why have they voted as they did ? Was it not on the part of some a weak yielding to the bigoted prejudices of their constituencies?' Would they ever have dreamt of acting as they did but for this influence ? And may it not be said that in the case of others the ' conscientious objector' has made cowards of them all ?" May we, he added, look to the House of Lords for a re- consideration of this subject ? We are strong supporters of compulsory vaccination, but we realise the great difficulties of the case as long as the Acts are locally enforced. Might not the best solution be to place the carrying out of the Acts entirely in the hands of a Government Department?
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