THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11333, 29 July 1897, Page 5

THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

I* It seems to us that the only logical Solution of the difficulty which the • meeting of women set itself to discuss in. the Temperance Union Eooma on Tuesday evening was indicated in the motion proposed hy Mrs Bone. There are, we admit, grave objections to one sex being singled out for the indignities imposed by an Act of Parliament; but it is absolutely necessary that some steps should be taken to stay the progress of a contagion which is threatening to affect the physical and moral health of the whole community. Mrs Sheppard was scarcely justified in implying that the majority of the experts had testified to the failure of the old methods of protection. So far as the medical profession is concerned—and we presume this constitutes the recognised board of experts— the vast majority of its members strongly maintain that the old methods were infinitely better than none at all. But the broad question of individual liberty must be decided quite apart from expert opinion. It affects even higher interests than those of the public health. There is no reason, except in the selfishness of the stronger sex, why a disease which in these days is far more disastrous than small-pox and cholera should not be fought with the weapons that are employed against those scourges. If the evil is to be stamped out, the men who have hitherto managed to shift the responsibility on to other shoulders than their own, must be brought to bear their proper share of the burden. This principle has been recognised to a large extent in the revival of the Cantonment Act in India, and the local reformers may fairly demand Mkthat it shall be embodied in any llVmendmcnt of our own legislation, j