Dr. Withers-Moore delivered the Presidential address of the British Medical
Association, which held its annual meeting at Brighton on Tuesday.. He condemned the inadequate salaries paid to our parish medical men, dwelt very seriously on that " de- moraliser of the poor, gratuitous medical relief," and maintained that if medical fees had only advanced as legal fees have done since the time of Queen Anne, there would not be so many over- worked doctors, and better work would have been done by them than it is possible for them with such an amount of work to do. But the chief subject of his address was the danger of spoiling women by admitting them to the harassing competitions of masculine life, and the injury to the race which would be caused by over-stimulating their nervous system. He quoted Herbert Spencer to show that women subjected to too great a strain of mental exertion are oftener than other women left without off- spring ; and when they are not, are oftener unable to nurse their own children ; but none of his authorities give us anything like statistical data for judging whether high education is or is not a factor in the sterility of women. Of course, ill-health is almost certain to be such a factor, and so far as high education tends to ill-health, it must be injurious. But within moderate and prudent limits, we believe high education to tend directly to bodily health, and not to bodily weakness.
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