FEVER AT MIDDLESBROUGH.

1510 that education has now to be enforced, and is in its way eminently an interference with liberty of conscience. The law of vaccination is by no means an isolated example of the requirement of enforcement of a beneficent measure to ensure its general success. With nearly 30,000 unvaccinated children in the union of Hackney the postponement of action in relation to defaulters may at any moment find the district visited by small-pox. When the inaction of a public body in opposition to the law of the land endangers the health of the community it seems high time that body was relieved of the power of inaction and the duty unfulfilled handed over to those who will faithfully carry it out. The anomaly of a sanitary body doing its best to stamp out disease which the recalcitrancy of another local body has fostered is one that should cease. And in this connexion the State has a duty which needs to be acted upon. When State and local authorities arealike inactive the anti-vaccinationist flourishes and the i seeds of future epidemics of small-pox are sown broadcast. Perhaps the Vaccination Commission may report some day and tend to hasten the coming in of better things all round.

SANITARY AUTHORITIES AND THE VACCINATION ACTS. THE desire on the part of sanitary bodies to have in their hands the administration of the Vaccination Acts seems to be growing. We notice that it is now stated that the Lewisham district board of works are about to apply to the Court of Queen’s Bench for a writ of mandamus to compel the Lewisham board of guardians to enforce the Acts. This, we take it, is but another way of expresssing the view that the duty would be better entrusted to the board of works themselves. We trust that in many more quarters there may rise up the demand on the part of health bodies for the better administration of the Acts now that we may be exposed next winter to a general small-pox epidemic. It is a distinctly healthy sign that our local sanitary guardians are growing keenly alive to the absurdity of themselves using every effort for the extinction of small-pox, and spending the ratepayers’ money on isolation hospitals and the like, while the Poor-law guardians are quietly sitting by and allowing people to disregard the law, with resulting suffering, death, and expense.

ACTION FOR MALPRAXIS AGAINST AN UNREGISTERED "DENTIST."

extraction of the tooth, and, still further, it would be difficult to say whether the operation was performed skilfully or unskilfully. The point, however, which must not be overlooked is that there was no evidence beyond that of the dentist called for the defence that the assistant in question possessed the necessary skill. He was not registered, and admitted in his evidence that he had not been apprenticed to a dentist, so that we may certainly question whether he possessed the requisite knowledge. The case is one of those which help to point out the fact that better legislation is required to guard the public against unqualified practitioners whose knowledge is generally but slight and whose skill can usually be gauged at about the same standard.

FEVER AT MIDDLESBROUGH. THE experience ofMiddlesbrough in the matter of fatal fever during the last twelve months has not been a happy one, judging by the successive returns of the RegistrarGeneral issued in that period. Up to the close of last year the deaths from fever showed increasing prevalence, and the months that have since elapsed demonstrate a further increase, the first three months of the present year having seen a score of deaths from fever in the borough. In the face of these facts the action of the town council at its first meeting in the current year attains a special significance. The question of the transmission of the annual reports of the medical officer of health to the Local Government Board was raised, and it was asserted that such transmission would probably end in the council having to carry out the recommendations of its health adviser. The council had some time ago even gone so far as to refuse to accept repayment of a portion of the health officer’s salary in order to avoid the need of sending up to the Whitehall authorities the annual productions of the medical officer. The requirements of death registration are, however, inexorable, and the facts which they bring to light in the case of Middlesbrough are the more likely to appeal to headquarters by reason of the wilful withholding of local reports. "Where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise" is not, we trust, likely to be the maxim of the central authority, and many a searching inquiry of a helpful nature has been set going by circumstances far less provocative of State intervention.

ACCIDENTS AND INEXPERIENCE.

AN action (to which allusion was made last week in our THE very sad boating disaster which cost the lives of three Birmingham correspondent’s letter) has recently been tried persons last Saturday on Lake Windermere cannot fail to at the Birmingham county court in which a labourer excite in every mind the keenest regret. It is further notesought to recover damages for unskilful treatment from worthy as being typical of a class of accidents which is absoThe facts lutely inseparable from almost any form of athletic recreaa druggist who was not a registered dentist. of the case are briefly these. The plaintiff in June of tion so long as obedience to the calls of caution and last year went to a branch establishment belonging to the experience is not accepted as the governing principle. defendant to have a tooth extracted. He was seen by an Whether it be the management of a sailing boat-and much assistant, whose name, also, does not appear on the Dentists’ more if this be a racing cutter-the climbing of a peak, a Register, and who made a fruitless endeavour to remove the long swim, a ride on a horse or a bicycle, a row on the river, tooth, and then suggested that the plaintiff should go to a or a physical effort whatsoever or wheresoever, requiring The proper dentist to get the remaining portion of the stump skill in him who makes it, this rule holds. extracted. As far as can be gathered from the report the novice must be content with learning ; if he is not, face and neck were swollen at the time of the operation. no authority or act of law which does not also forbid On the following day a medical man was called in and he his exertions can save him from getting into trouble. stated that the bone had been splintered by the attempt We do not ignore the duty of warning which belongs to proto remove the tooth. After being five weeks under the fessional instructors. The Alpine guide, the boat owner, care of the medical man the plaintiff went to Queen’s Hosand a hundred other experts must share this responsibility, pital, where some necrosed bone was removed, the patient but still another factor is required for the safe attainment not being able to resume his work until April 15th of this of success-one who will listen to advice. We trust that year. For the defence a dentist was called, who stated that he had known the assistant for four or five years and considered him a competent operator. In reviewing the facts of the case it would be difficult to say whether the necrosis was the result of the operation or the condition calling for

reasonable caution will still be in time for any who shall seek healthy recreation in various forms of sport this summer. At the inquest, which was held on May 25th, the jury, after returning a verdict of "Accidental death," recommended the local authority to prohibit the letting of a