Observations on the majority report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1882.

Date:
[1882]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the majority report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1882. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the evidence upon the subject. It may be confidently stated hat if the official witness himself had contributed this part of the Report, he could not possibly have produced anything more absolutely and exclusively representative of the views and opinions expressed by himself before the Committee, in respect of the alleged success of the Acts as hygienic measures. The Report is equally prejudiced and unfair in the selection even of official evidence, for it rejects or ignores all testimony, even from official sources, which does not suit the object m view.. ror instance, it quotes from the Report of the Royal Commission of 1871 the opinions of Sir James Paget, Sjr William Jenner, and Mr. Prescott Hewett as to the formidable character of a certain disease. But the majority of the Committee refused on a division to insert in the Report the fact that the Royal Commission quoted, “on the other hand,” the testimony of Mr. Simon (the medical officer of the Privy Council), of Mr. Skey (the Chairman of the Venereal Committee appointed by Government), and of Surgeon-Major Wyatt (of the Coldstream Guards), to a different effect. The members who voted for the suppression of this important difference of opinion expressed by medical men of such eminence were: Dr. Farquharson, General Burnaby, Mr. Bulwer, Viscount Crichton, Colonel Digby, Colonel Tottenham, Mr. Osborne Morgan, Mr. Cavendish Bentinck, and Sir Henry Wolff. (Vide Report, p. lxxxviii.) This absolute and exclusive adoption of official theories and official calculations favourable to the Acts is, however, quite consistent with the preference for evidence of that kind and effect which was manifested throughout the enquiry in the tone of the questions put by several members of the Committee, which it is important to remark contained a strong official element, although the subject of investigation was an official system. But such preference is utterly inconsistent with those judicial attributes which the public is entitled to expect from a Parliamentary tribunal, even although the questions submitted for its decision should be matters of professional interest to some of thejudges. This indication ol prejudice in dealing with the statistical matter is consistent with the treatment of the less materialistic parts of the subject. It is beyond the scope of these observations to enter upon any detailed examination of the statistical conclusions contained in the Majority Report. The Report of the Minority shows very different results. But, as the ultimate practical question is that of the efficiency of the Army, it may be remarked that the result of the deductions in the Majority Report is “a difference °f 5'3p Per J.000 representing the true saving effected by the Acts. This alleged saving, on the average strength of 50,000 men in the “ protected ” districts, represents a total saving of 269 men claimed as due to the operation of the Acts. Assuming such