1009HARROP v. THE CORPORATION OF OSSETT.

the cockle industry at Leigh in Essex. We are, how-

ever, very glad to hear that Mr. CHAPLIN is shortlyabout to introduce a Bill to prevent a recurrence of suchan outbreak as that caused by the Brightlingsea oysters.The matter is urgent and it is to be hoped that the Billwill be brought before the House of Commons soon afterEaster.

IN the case of Harrop v. the Corporation of Ossett,which was reported in our last issue, the plaintiffs, pro-perty owners, were refused an injunction to restrain the

corporation from using an adjacent site for the treat-

ment of small-pox. Mr. Justice Roxx’s finding seemsto be almost the only one which was possible in the

circumstances. There must necessarily be importantobstacles to a decision to the effect that a small-poxhospital constitutes a legal nuisance when there is no

evidence that the hospital in question has actually causedinfection of persons living in the neighbourhood and whenin the case of other small-pox hospitals similarly situated itis only occasionally that danger of the kind apprehended hasbeen manifest. Moreover, as Mr. Justice RoMEE indicated,no one need live in continual dread that his household mayin the future be exposed to infection from a neighbouringhospital. They have only to be efficiently vaccinated orrevaccinated, as the case may be, and they may be

exposed as often as they please with impunity. The

interest of the case, however, lies in the use made bythe defence of the statements of certain witnesses as to

the well-known cases in which small-pox has spreadin characteristic fashion round hospitals. These witnesses

rejected aerial convection even as a working hypothesisto account for the facts and believed that defects of

hospital administration might somehow or other have been

responsible for the characteristic incidence of the disease

in the neighbourhood of the hospital in each instance.

These opinions were relied upon for inference that if

only a hospital is, or is likely to be, well administered,there is little or no risk that it will involve exposure to

infection of persons living in the neighbourhood. We are

by no means sure of the soundness of this inference.

The question arises-what in this sense constitutes properadministration Unless the average sanitary authority is

able and willing to keep in readiness, year in and year

out, buildings, beds, and staff to an extent hitherto uncon-templated, definite risk of a breakdown in administration isbound to be incurred whenever a sudden epidemic of small-

pox occurs in the district. Moreover, if the characteristic

spread of small-pox round hospitals is held to be a matter ofadministration then it has to be added that we have yet noevidence that the best of administration can prevent its

occurrence. In none of the outbreaks of recent years has

this question been put to proof in the way in which it

formerly was in London by the Metropolitan Asylums Board.Administrative shortcomings such as occurred in the case

of Warrington and other hospitals were hardly in questionin the case of Fulham Hospital in 1684. Here the hospitalwas prepared beforehand for the epidemic, and probablynowhere before or since have administrative precautionsbeen carried out with greater thoroughness and rigour.Nevertheless the failure of these measures to prevent the

characteristic spread of small-pox round this hospital was socomplete as to compel the Metropolitan Asylums Board tocarry out the policy of removing all cases of small-pox sofar out of London as the ships in Long Reach. In their

neighbourhood there is happily little population on which theincidence of small-pox can be studied.

Annotations.

THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE GENERALMEDICAL COUNCIL.

.. Ne quid nlmla."

ON Tuesday, April 5th, the General Medical Council by aunanimous vote elected Sir William Turner, M.B. Lond.,LL.D. Glasg., D.C.L. Oxford and Durham, F.R.C.S. Eng.and Edin., F.R.S. London and Edinburgh, &c., to be itsnew President in the room of the late Sir Richard Quain.Sir William Turner received his medical educationat St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, graduating M.B. atthe University of London in 1857. In 1867, on thedeath of Professor Goodsir, he was elected Professor of

Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. Among manyother appointments he has been Examiner in Anatomy at theUniversities of Oxford, London and Durham, Lecturer onAnatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, andPresident of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.For many years past he has been chosen to represent theUniversity of Edinburgh on the General Medical Council andin 1889 was elected by the Senate of the University as oneof their representatives on the University Court. He is theauthor of an Atlas of Human Anatomy and Physiology,"lectures on The Comparative Anatomy of the Placenta,"and other antomical works, besides numerous papers onvarious scientific subjects. In 1886 he received the honourof a knighthood. For thirty years he held a commission inthe 2nd Edinburgh Rifle Volunteer Corps, and retired in1889 with the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. SirWilliam Turner brings to bear upon the duties of the newpost a sound judgment and wide experience in some partderived from his having been in 1881 a member of the RoyalCommission appointed to inquire into the working of theActs affecting the medical profession.

A QUESTION OF FEES.

A SUIT for the recovery of a professional debt which wasrecently decided in the Shoreditch county court well illus-trates the readiness with which a misunderstanding mayarise as to the true relation between medical practitionersand their patients. In this case an important point wasraised in connexion with the question-what term of attend-ance was covered by the ordinary fee for accouchement 2The practitioner very liberally allowed a fortnight. This

concession, however, did not satisfy the defendant, whoprotested that a further course of treatment for oph-thalmia in his infant child should have been included.With this remarkable opinion the presiding judge was

at first disposed to agree and he practically refused toaccept any limit as closing the period of medical super-vision naturally consequent upon delivery and covered bythe same primary charge. We cannot but regard thisattitude as being as injudicious as it is unjust. There is

obviously no possibility of assigning a legal term in suchcases except by an appeal to the rule and custom ofmedical practice. We have referred to the view taken bythe practitioner already mentioned as being very liberal.Professional usage in general practice has fixed the ordinary