must reign there supreme, or the character of the Association would be gone. So felt Mr. Hardy, and his wrath slumbered. At Liverpool the opportunity arose, and his feelings once more found vent. Matters then stood as they were left at Worcester,-every precaution being taken to keep the homoeopathic wolf out of the fold of the timid. British Medical sheep. A new bye-law was now proposed relating to the election of members, but leaving the beforementioned precautions still in force. The bye-law contained this clause :-" Provided that the power of such Branch Council shall only extend to the election of male persons." Here was Mr. Nelson Hardy's chance. He proposed to amend the bye-law by inserting after "male persons" the words "not practising homœopathy nor advertising." The "judicious" Husband, whilst he feared homœopathy very much, feared advertising still more ;— especially advertising homœopathy. He" thought it would be undesirable to do anything to advertise homoeopathy or make it more powerful than it was." "For himself, he would leave homoeopathy to the contempt of all wellregulated minds. Having thus relieved his conscience, [what a delicate conscience he must have!] he should vote against the amendment." Thereupon all these "wellregulated minds" commenced to "discuss" the point. The British Medical Journal does not describe this discussion and so the Liverpool Mercury shall do it for us:

"At this point considerable uproar was caused by members trying to obtain the ear of the chair against the wish of a large section of the meeting, who clamoured for the suppression of the discussion and an immediate vote. The noise was intense in spite of the efforts to preserve anything like a semblance of order. A member of the committee came forward and said, ' Gentlemen, are you going to disgrace yourselves by misbehaving in a public meeting and disobeying the chair.' This appeal was responded to by loud cries of 'Chair,' and hissing, which was directed against Dr. Gilbart Smith (London) and Dr. O'Connor, the former stationed underneath the gallery, and the latter in the gallery, both of whom were in vain endeavouring to obtain a hearing. In the midst of considerable disorder, the Chairman

said, 'I am in the hands of the meeting,' to which several gentlemen replied, and the meeting supports you.' The Chairman then said, 'The meeting says "Vote," and I put the amendment.' ('No, no,' and 'Yes, yes.') A great tumult prevailed during the show of hands, which resulted, according to the ruling of the Chairman, in the amendment being lost. He then asked for a show of hands in favour of the clause in its original state, whereupon

"Dr. GILBART SMITH, who had several times essayed to speak, said, amid continued uproar-'I propose an amendment to the resolution as you now put it. It is that this meeting be now adjourned, seeing that the business has hardly been conducted in a manner consistent with the dignity of the Association.' ('Hear, hear,' and laughter.)

“Mr. WALTER RIVINGTON (London), who had several times risen to a point of order and was as frequently refused a hearing, seconded this proposition.

“Dr. FITZPATRICK asked the Chairman to put it to the meeting whether the gentlemen named, and others, should be allowed to address the meeting or be turned out. (Laughter and uproar).

"Dr. W. R. ROGERS (London) said they had patiently listened to a speech from the last speaker, and it was unfair to endeavour to put down those who differed from him. It was a disgraceful thing that a body of gentlemen should form a clique to stop others from speaking on a subject which was interesting to all.

"Dr. O'CONNOR said the practice of discussion in the House of Commons was to allow any member to speak to an amendment. Why had the Chairman refused to allow Dr. Gilbart Smith to speak?

"The CHAIRMAN said it was the wish of the meeting that they should not hear him.

"Dr. O'CONNOR continued speaking, but owing to the loud cries of sit down,' and the noise caused by a number of gentlemen leaving the meeting abruptly, his observations were inaudible.

"The CHAIRMAN asked the meeting whether it was their pleasure to hear Dr. Gilbart Smith, who was still standing, and the meeting responded with cries of No' and 'Yes.'

VOL. XLI, NO. CLXVI.-OCTOBER, 1883.

A A

"A member in the gallery created laughter by remarking ‘I beg to move that this house do report progress.'

"Ultimately another vote was taken, and the rule as it stood was declared to be affirmed by a majority of the meeting."*

And now we will hear the comments of another Liverpool paper, the Daily Post on these proceedings of the well-regulated minds."

"But the doctors seem quite incapable of rational discussion. Impatience has been their principal characteristic all the week during the business of the sections. Umbrellas must have been worn nearly to the stump in drowning the voices of speakers,

* In the course of this discussion, as reported (though not described) by the British Medical Journal of August 4th, Mr. John Dix, of Hull, said that "there was an old bye-law that every candidate for membership should sign a declaration that he was not a homœopath and did not intend to become one, and no one could explain why the law had fallen through." The explanation is simple enough, though none of the leaders of the Association saw fit to enlighten Mr. Dix and the meeting on the point. To have done so would have involved the confession of humiliation, and the Association cannot afford to be straightforward at that price. At the notorious Brighton meeting of the British Medical Association, where homoeopathy was solemnly cursed by bell, book, and candle, the anathemas of this great liberal body were crystallised into the precious "law" referred to by Mr. Dix; and when, soon afterwards, the Association applied to Government for a charter of incorporation the Brighton law appeared among the other rules and regulations submitted by the Association to the Board of Trade. The gentlemen composing that Board, not being medical men, at once saw the injustice and absurdity of the law, and struck it out bodily, refusing to grant the charter unless it were surrendered. The Association ate the leek with as much relish as may be supposed, and got its charter. That is why the "old byelaw" has fallen through, and that is why the Association is reduced to adopting all manner of circuitous and underhand expedients for keeping homœopathists out of their fold in place of directly expelling them, or refusing them admission. To do this would be to forfeit their charter and all the rights it conveys. Mr. Husband was quite wrong when he said the Association "had a right to exclude anybody." It could not exclude even himself were he to turn homœopathist unless he had violated the laws in force under the charter. A simple explanation of this fact would have put a speedy end to the vapourings of the Husbands and Nelson Hardys, and have saved the meeting from resolving itself into the above-described pandemonium; but then it would have been the more honourable and straightforward course to have adopted, and consequently a violation of all the most cherished traditions of the British Medical Association.

while exclamations indicative of great rudeness and little wit have interrupted almost every member who tried to express controverted ideas to the meetings. Such incidents as these very much lower the tone of the proceedings, and tend to injure the reputation of the Association. Row and tumult are bad enough when the perpetrators of such inconsiderate demonstrations are medical students or undergraduates; but in representative men of maturity, holding up the honour of a noble profession under the close observation of a great and quick-witted community, these escapades are egregiously foolish and unpardonably out of character."

These observations, we are told, produced 66 and regret."

annoyance

The secretary of a section wrote to the editor pointing out that it was "only" at the general meeting where "important and much debated points on medical politics were brought forward " that such scenes occurred, and that the general meetings are only "a small and comparatively unimportant part of the business of the Association. The editor appended to the letter this forcible remark: "We submit that the more difficult aud delicate the business in hand, the less are disturbances and umbrella stamping in place at the meetings of a learned society."

Previously to the meeting of the Association, the Liverpool Homœopathic Medico-Chirurgical Society published in the Liverpool papers the following able and vigorous protest against the attitude and conduct of the Association towards homœopathy and its professsors :

"We beg to enter a public protest against the illiberal conduct of the British Medical Association, about to hold its annual congress in Liverpool. For many years it has carried out a policy of hostility to homœopathy and homoeopathic practitioners, by a law excluding all such practitioners from membership, and has endeavoured to the utmost of its power to destroy a system of medical treatment founded on a principle admitted by all, and which is as old as Hippocrates. This principle, whilst holding a place in medicine from that time till now, was not greatly

developed till Hahnemann arose, and by his labours and genius revivified and extended it till it assumed proportions that had not been anticipated in the ages before him. Those who have studied it and adopted it as their chief rule of practice have found it to cover by far the largest portion of ordinary medical practice, and to be the most efficacious means of curing disease. The homoeopathic school has grown till its practitioners are counted by hundreds in this country and by thousands in America. In London alone there are over a hundred, and, in addition, some thirty homoeopathic chemists. Homœopathic medicines and books are to be found all over the civilised world, and at home there is scarcely a family where the system is not known. Yet in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and in the midst of liberal-minded England, a self-constituted body of medical men, forming the British Medical Association, close their doors against those who do partially, but not altogether, agree with them as to the best method of treating disease. In medicine, if anywhere, the rights of minorities ought to be respected. An essentially imperfect and progressive science like that of medicine is in no position for assuming the functions of a dominant and intolerant church, and visiting differing opinions with the punishment of heresy. To do so is to assume an unwarrantable and illogical position, and to injure its own cause, for progress in medicine is only possible by the interchange of different opinions in order to elicit the truth; and we believe the conduct of the Association has very materially retarded its scientific progress. The suppression, or attempted suppression, of adverse opinions in medicine, by mere force of numbers instead of by the legitimate means of modern science-argument and experiment-is unworthy of the members of an enlightened profession. It would be an error to condemn every member of the Association for its legislative action as a body, for there are a few liberal-minded men amongst them-and they are chiefly of the higher professional ranks-who counsel fair and honourable dealing with their colleagues of whatever shade of opinion. But hitherto the dead weight of the rank and file of the profession has been against them, and the Association has thus laid itself open to the charge of acting in the spirit of a trades union of the narrowest type. So long as their Index expurgatorius includes all homœopathic literature, and the comminatory clauses