has not our sympathy been mellowing and ripening during another year, short though it may seem ? And not alone the old members do we greet with gladness, but the new, and those who come to us as welcome guests. I utterly fail to grasp the true sentiment.

of the profession here if your visit at this time does not make you feel how glad we are to have you as our guests, and how anxious we are that this brief period of relaxation, from your onerous professional duties may be one of the most pleasant and profitable you have ever spent.

This province, though young in years, has for the greater part of its life taken a prominent place in educational matters. Our Public School system, growing out of that established by that wise educationist, Dr. Egerton Ryerson, is one of which we are justly proud, and yet it has its faults. A few years ago Dr. Ferguson, of London, read a paper before the Association pointing out the injury occasioned to our growing youth by the present system of determining promotion by the results of written examinations. He showed how a very large amount of the work done was simply cramming for examination, and not true education; that a great many children and young people were severely injured in health from the unwise but unavoidable competition under the system.

At last freedom and better order are making their appearance. The Hon. R. Harcourt, Minister of Education, has brought in a bill this session making changes as far as city schools are concerned, and he proposes discussing more radical changes with a committee appointed at the Ontario Teachers' Association, so as to enlarge its scope next year to apply to all the Public Schools of the Province, thus making our system more educative and less competitive by combining with it manual training and eliminating many of the examinations. Our pupils will not then be under so great a mental strain, and will have better opportunities to mature and make the healthy men and women this country requires for the great future it has before it. Truly we can get along with fewer neurasthenics, neurotics and cranks than we have at present. We welcome the evidence of progressive thought and interest in the welfare of our youth on the part of the Government.

We congratulate the Medical Schools of the Province on the good work they are doing. Our graduates compare most favorably with those of similar length of training wherever they may hail from-men going from our schools having that within "which maketh them not ashamed"-notwithstanding the immense endowments of many of the wealthy colleges elsewhere on the continent. The rapid changes and development in both medicine and surgery will soon require a longer and more extensive course than at present, and we can confidently depend upon the Ontario Medical Council keeping up the standard required to meet the exigencies of the time. We can also trust the efficient staff of each of our medi

cal colleges to make the clinical teaching keep pace with the large amount of work now required in the laboratory, so that our graduates may be as skilled in their observation of symptoms as they are in chemical and microscopic analysis.

We are glad to note the ever-increasing number of our practitioners who are spending a greater or lesser length of time in postgraduate work. Has not the time arrived for the establishment of a post-graduate course in Toronto? We have physicians as well-instructed in scientific medicine, and surgeons who operate as skilfully as can be found anywhere. Our hospitals, too, have increased in number and importance so that plenty of material could be at hand. A staff formed by the union of our best men to give a post-graduate course could not fail to be of benefit to the Province, and afford opportunities for advanced study to many who could not, and to many who should not be allowed to go elsewhere.

We are glad to notice the increased number of hospitals throughout Ontario. It means a great deal to the afflicted, and particularly to those of limited means. It will give our local surgeons and practitioners a chance to do much better work, and to obtain vastly better results from the improved regime possible in a more general use of the hospital. We trust it will not be many years until every town in Ontario will have its hospital.

We congratulate Lady Minto on her success in the establishment of cottage hospitals, and feel sure she will be rewarded for her labors in this direction by the benefit obtained by those afflicted ones who will receive care and treatment therein.

In our city hospitals I would endorse what our immediate past President, Dr. Powell, proposed last year, that the term of the house surgeon should be extended to at least eighteen months, and so arranged that only half the staff be relieved at one time, so that skilled and expert men may be always in attendance. In this way a new appointee would not occupy a responsible position until trained for it, and a skilled anesthetist would always be available.

In Provincial legislation the only matter of special note is the regulation adopted by the Provincial Board of Health on February 12th last, re Scarlet Fever. It has occasioned a great deal of adverse criticism, and it is questionable if the order for removal to either isolation hospital or tent is practicable at all seasons of the year either in congested communities or rural districts, and unless the attending physician has some voice in the matter it is not likely this law will be productive of good.

As for the Dominion House, Dr. Roddick succeeded in getting an Act passed, providing for the establishment of a Dominion Medical Council with full power to hold examinations in medicine and grant licenses valid in any portion of the Dominion. This Council can only become constituted when all the Provinces have accepted the provisions of the Act. With the exception of Quebec

The

all have enacted such legislation as to make the Act effective. The
Legislature of the Province of Quebec, however, defeated the bill
introduced for the purpose, rendering the bill inoperative.
reason for this action was that under the present Provincial Act
Quebec graduates in McGill, Bishop's and Laval Universities, who
have passed four years in their studies and obtained their degree
are entitled. without further examination, to obtain a license to
practise medicine in that Province. Graduates of the Manitoba
University also require but four years, whereas, in Ontario, as we
all know, a fifth year has to be spent before the candidate can go up
for his final examination before the Council.

Dr. Roddick's bill, had it been accepted, would have placed students in all the Provinces upon the same footing, and having passed the examination of the Dominion Council the successful candidate would then have possessed a license entitling him to practise anywhere in Canada. The series of amendments to the Act suggested to render it acceptable to Quebec would be so manifestly unfair to Ontario that we of this Province could never accept them. It would appear, therefore, that inter-Provincial legislation is dead for the time being unless Quebec is willing to rescind its action of the past session and, like Manitoba, unselfishly place itself on the equal and advanced footing of the other Provinces. Dr. Roddick, however, has still hopes, and writes to say that "Considering that four of the Provinces have completed the concurrent legislation necessary, I am not disposed to give up the fight." He is now asking the Parliament to amend the Dominion Registration Act so as to permit the Provinces that favor it to begin at once the work of such registration. The doctor certainly deserves great credit for the vigorous fight he has put up, and we earnestly hope he may be successful in his efforts.

The need for, and importance of, the continuous education of the public on the lines of public health and prophylaxis is well illustrated by the formation of an anti-vaccination society in this city. At some of the meetings of this society this year, some practising physicians made statements (or were reported to have made them, according to daily papers April 10th) so wide of the truth that they showed a most lamentable ignorance of the whole history of the subject. When we find the very commendable action for the enforcement of vaccination questioned by one of our own profession by the bringing in of a law at the late session of the Legislature for the repeal of said enactment, it is certainly time to look into the matter and ventilate it as thoroughly as possible.

We believe with Dr. Ridpath that: "Essential freedom is the right to differ, and that right must be sacredly respected, nor must the privilege of dissent be conceded with coldness or disdain, but openly, cordially and with good-will. No loss of rank abatement of character or ostracism from society must darken the pathway of

the humblest, honest seeker after truth. The right of free thought, free enquiry and free speech to all everywhere is as clear as the noonday and bounteous as the air and the sea."

If all professed seekers after truth were only honest in their views we could have no quarrel with them, even though we might differ in the result of our investigations. Some talk loudly on these subjects simply for effect, and are not honest in their statements, but desirous to achieve notoriety. Others talk through ignorance, having never taken either the time or labor to obtain for themselves the facts of the case. Then added to these classes we have the cranks and bores who will have a word in any way, even if it be but to repeat again and again some set speech.

At the same time it is the duty of the medical profession to continue to do as they have done in the past, ascertain all the facts in the case, study out the underlying truths and put them so far as we can in the possession of the public. We must, so far as in us lies, continue to protect the public from themselves even though we may often be called hard names and lie under the charge that we are working with interested motives. On the contrary we have motives of the very highest and noblest character; viz., the best interest of humanity; the desire to have justice done to the poorest and humblest who have not the means of protecting themselves from the scourges (such as smallpox, etc.), that may devastate and destroy countless numbers as in the past. Smallpox from being a dreaded scourge has become a disease seldom seen, and its increased prevalence during past few years may well be ascribed to our increasing carelessness in vaccination.

Unless we are occasionally wakened up by an epidemic the tendency to neglect all forms of safeguarding ourselves grows upon us and we do not like to take the trouble to render ourselves safe. It is difficult to convince people who have never seen the ravages of smallpox that it is an essential thing that their children should be vaccinated (and run the chances of a few days' illness or a very sore arm) for the sake of being prepared for an evil that is unknown to them and, therefore, entirely unappreciated. There certainly have been evils in connection with vaccination, but what are the very worst of those compared to an epidemic of true smallpox in an unvaccinated neighborhood? It would be safe to pay no attention to these anti-vaccinationists, and class them in with the followers of Christian Science, the Dowieites, Vitosophists, Osteopathists, etc., were they not such a menace by reason of their position as guardians of the public health. We see very many apparently sensible people led off by these fads, so it becomes our duty to impart to them all the knowledge we can on these important questions of health and disease, and particularly along the line of preventive medicine.

Germany has possibly the most compulsory system of vaccina

tion in the known world, and the result is that smallpox is almost vanished from the empire. In 1899 with a population of 54,000,000 there were only twenty-eight deaths, and these nearly all came in from an adjoining country.

If we consider the duty of the true physician is to stand by all measures that tend to promote health and prevent disease there should be some way of punishing those doctors who encourage the laity in their foolishness in combating the laws which are intended for their own best interests. Such action is certainly reprehensible, and it is hard to believe physicians of any school could be guilty of talking such "utter nonsense" as was attributed to them at one of their anti-vaccination meetings. It is highly probable that Dr. Councilman's great discovery of the germ that causes smallpox will assist us in a short time to a better understanding of the rationale of vaccination.

Two years ago the then President, Dr. McKinnon, referred to the great and often serious delay there was in gaining admission to our asylums for cases of acute mania, particularly with those at a distance. This need never occur at present time with our longdistance telephone facilities if our physicians are only careful enough to supply sufficient information. In all our asylums the superintendents are anxious to take in and look after this class of cases, and if applying physicians will but send full particulars setting forth the urgency of the case complete papers for admission will be sent on at once. Asylum authorities, as a rule, send the history or application paper to fill up first, and then if the case is a suitable one and they can still make room the patient is admitted. A great many senile cases are sent into asylums which could be looked after all right in their own home.

It is a matter of deep regret that so many insane people are sent to gaol without first making application to our asylums to see if such cannot be admitted at once. In the past year, of all the insane that have been sent into Toronto gaol (and there has been a large number), in only four cases was Toronto asylum asked to admit the patient previous to arrest, and in all of these cases (with one exception, due to overcrowding), although we sent the complete set of papers immediately on application, an arrest was made before the papers reached them when there was really no necessity for this precipitancy. Our physicians have a large measure of responsibility in this matter, and they should try and prevent any case of insanity being sent to the gaol unless there is absolutely no room for them in the asylums, as is sometimes the A change also should be made in the law so that two medical certificates should transfer a patient from gaol to the asylum, as it does from outside. In this way prompt action could be taken. as against the complex procedure which at present exists. We are glad to note that the Provincial Secretary, Hon. J. R. Stratton, has

case.