The following paper is intended to deal in an indicative rather than an exhaustive manner with certain aspects of the Health Insurance Legislation which has come into force recently in this country, and to draw attention also to the main points of similarity and of distinction which a review of the more important analogous foreign schemes brings to light. Needless to say, there is no attempt to fan the dying embers of politico-journalistic controversy, and wherever an opinion is expressed it is given with such reasons as appear to the author to support it.

In putting forward the present Paper I am somewhat dubious as to whether it is not almost necessary to apologise for bringing before the notice of the Institute a subject which forms but one of the many minor branches of our Science, and which, moreover, has had a certain amount of odium—much of which is undeserved—thrown upon it from time to time. So far, however, as the Institute is concerned, it is practically untrodden ground, and the consideration, therefore, of some of the new problems suggested by it may not be without interest.