It is noteworthy that when the notification of ordinary infectious disease was first proposed in England almost exactly the same arguments were brought against the proposal as are now advanced against the notification of venereal disease. Sir W. Foster, member for Ilkeston, and a medical man of standing, speaking in the House of Commons in the debate on the Infectious Diseases Notification Bill, on the 31st July, 1889, said, "The Bill calls upon medical men to perform something more than the ordinary duties of citizenship by requiring them to become informers of the occurrence of diseases. The relation of a medical men to his patient ought to be one of complete confidence, and anything that comes to the knowledge of a medical man in the practice of his profession is practically an inviolable secret; and I do not like any Bill to interfere with that relationship. I know myself that one of the results of this Bill, if passed into law, will be that in scores of cases medical men will not be called in to attend people suffering from infectious diseases ... I admit the difficulty of the position, but I am anxious that no measure should pass into law which will induce the public to keep these diseases more secret than they have been in the past, with the risk of adding to the spreading of them. We must be very cautious not to do anything which will prevent the public from placing full and implicit confidence in their medical man. I can quite conceive it to be possible that, if an outbreak of infectious disease occurs in a populous part of London, the people may, in order to prevent exposure, refuse to allow a medical man to come in, and in such cases we shall have tenfold more difficulty than at present. Therefore, while I am anxious to promote the notification of disease, I do not want the Government to promote rebellion on the part of the public." Needless to say, these gloomy anticipations have not been realized. Probably the more enlightened generations to succeed us will wonder how there could ever have been any opposition to the notification of venereal disease, just as we to-day read Sir W. Foster's words and marvel that any person of intelligence could have committed himself to such statements.