On November 23rd the complaint against Dr. Allbutt was considered by the General Medical Council, a body composed of twenty-seven physicians. Dr. Allbutt was represented by Mr. Wallace (barrister), and the "prosecution" was conducted by Mr. Muir Mackenzie, the legal adviser of the Council. The following were the points which the Council proceeded to consider: "(1) Was The Wife's Handbook a fair medical treatise, or was it an indecent advertisement? (2) Was it practically an injury to the public and an insult to the profession?" Mr. Wallace, in a very able speech, traversed the suggestions made by the Council's solicitor, and challenged the right of an irresponsible body to determine whether any line of advocacy was "subversive of public morality." If Dr. Allbutt had violated the law, he was amenable to legal proceedings, and it was not for the Medical Council to sit in judgment upon him. Mr. Wallace justified the course that Dr. Allbutt had taken in publishing his work at a low price in order that it might be placed within the reach of the poorest classes. He called the attention of the members to a list of the petitions which had been presented to the Council on the subject from all parts of Europe. They amounted to over seventy; many of them came from medical, scientific, and political societies. He assured the Council that the members of the medical profession were by no means unanimous in condemning Mr. Allbutt, and it would run against the feelings of a very considerable minority if they decided adversely to his client. The book was written with the express object of saving poor people from the misery, poverty, and starvation which resulted from the over-production of children; and he asked the Council, in conclusion, to arrive at a decision which would relieve his client from the imputation which had been cast upon him, and which would restore him to his proper position. The Council having deliberated in private, the President delivered the following judgment: "In the opinion of the Council, Mr. Allbutt has committed the offence charged against him, that is to say, of having published and publicly caused to be sold a work entitled The Wife's Handbook, in London and elsewhere, at so low a price as to bring the work within the reach of the youth of both sexes, to the detriment of public morals. Secondly, the offence is, in the opinion of the Council, 'infamous conduct in a professional respect.' Thirdly, the Registrar is hereby ordered to erase the name of Mr. H. A. Allbutt from the Medical Register." Thus ended the futile attempt of the General Medical Council to put a stop to the publication of Malthusian works "at so low a price." Nobody was a penny the worse for the ponderous proceedings of this archaic tribunal. Dr. Allbutt has never ceased to practise legally as a physician; twenty editions of The Wife's Handbook have been issued and 180,000 copies sold.