JANUARY 12, 1912] 
able to make any terms they liked with the 
local insurance committees when once these 
were formed. This simple but most successful 
artifice, and the curious belief entertained by 
the doctors up to the last moment that Mr. 
Lloyd George would never dare to pass his 
bill without having come to a clearer under- 
standing with them that they would work his 
scheme, prevented the medical profession 
doing what they might have done, and ought 
to have done—that is, organize pressure upon 
members of Parliament and upon the House 
of Lords in order to prevent the bill passing 
till their claims had been properly recognized. 
Now, however, that the bill has actually 
passed, and the task of putting things right is 
multiplied a thousandfold in difficulty, the 
doctors are beginning to wake up and see the 
terrible position into which they have got 
themselves, or rather, as the rank and file 
would say, into which their leaders, inexperi- 
enced in political negotiation, have got them. 
They are at last beginning to understand the 
very simple rule of strategy—‘if you allow 
yourself to be taken in detail, you are lost.” 
Instead of the doctors being able to make 
good terms with the individual insurance 
committees, they are beginning to see that the 
only chance of their not being bullied into 
starvation rates by those committees is for the 
whole profession to hold resolutely together 
and not to allow themselves to be pounded up 
piecemeal. At the great meeting at the 
Queen’s Hall on Tuesday night it was obvious 
that the medical profession is at last seriously 
alarmed. They realize that they have been 
“done,” but they do not intend to stay “ done.” 
Unless we very much mistake the signs of the 
times, the medical profession mean to organ- 
ize resistance to the act and to refuse to make 
any agreements under it, unless and until 
their just claims are recognized. And here 
we may interpose that if Mr. Lloyd George 
offers to negotiate with them, as we fully ex- 
pect he will, they will, if they are wise, not be 
content for a second time with promises and 
general assurances. They must insist that 
whatever concessions are made shall be em- 
bodied in an amending act, to be passed as 
SCIENCE 63 
soon as may be after Parliament reassembles, 
or, at any rate, before the date at which the 
measure comes into operation—z. e., July 1 
next. They will be told, of course, that such 
a suggestion is absurd and that nothing can 
be done till Home Rule is out of the way. “If 
nothing else forbade it, Mr. Redmond would 
not,” ete. The only answer to this is, “If you 
ean not find time, you can not have our assist- 
ance in working your measure.” 
An even more important sign that the doc- 
tors are growing alive to the position of 
deadly peril in which their interests are 
placed under the act is to be found in the 
quasi-referendum which has been organized 
by a medical newspaper, The Practitioner. 
The journal in question sent out a voting 
paper to the 29,567 medical practitioners of 
Great Britain, asking them the following 
question: 
Are you satisfied that the arrangements made 
for the profession with regard to the medical 
service now embodied in the National Insurance 
Bill would justify you in giving honest and ade- 
quate service to the insured? 
The result of the poll was most remarkable. 
20,712 replies have already been received, with 
the result that 20,149 doctors have answered 
“'No”—that is, have declared that they are 
not satisfied that the arrangements of the In- 
surance act will justify them in giving ade- 
quate service to the insured. Only 352 out of 
the whole 29,000 have expressed themselves as 
satisfied, while 211 have asked questions—a 
fact which would seem to indicate that they 
are not satisfied. Very naturally The Prac- 
titioner realizes that it is no use to stop at 
eliciting the dissatisfaction of the profession. 
Accordingly it has now asked the doctors of 
Great Britain—Ireland is not aftected—or, 
rather, those who are dissatisfied with the act, 
to give the following pledge: 
Feeling that the present National Insurance 
Act is unjust to the medical profession, I hereby 
pledge my word not to accept any service what- 
soever under it. I stipulate, however, that unless 
at least 23,000 members of my profession in Great 
Britain combine with me in this pledge, I am to 
be freed from it. 
