+Reporting of Syphilis to Health Officers.+—­The question of reporting syphilis to health officers as a contagious disease is a good one to raise in a meeting when a stormy session is desired.  Upon this question wide differences of opinion exist all over the world.  The right of a sick person to privacy, always deserving of consideration, becomes acute when it touches not only his physical but his social, economic, and moral welfare.  It becomes a matter of importance to the state also when the prospect that his secret will not be kept leads him to conceal his disease and to avoid good public aid in favor of bad private care.  It is a question whether the amount gained by collecting a few statistics as to the actual presence of the disease will be offset by the harm done in driving to cover persons who will not be reported.  Modified forms of reporting sexual diseases, without name or address, for example, can be employed without betraying a patient’s identity, thus doing away with some of the objections, and they have been in force in such cities as New York for some time.  Vermont has recently adopted a compulsory reporting system, with the almost ludicrous result that by the figures her population shows 0.5 per cent syphilis, when the truth probably stands nearer 10 per cent.  Much of the difficulty with reporting systems goes back to the lack of an educated public or professional sentiment behind them.  For this reason they may be fairly placed in the category of premature legislative experiments, and should be postponed until a more favorable time.  That this view has the sanction of students of such problems is borne out by the recent comment of Hugh Cabot on this issue, and by the decision of the British Royal Commission which, after careful deliberation, decided not to recommend to the Government at the present time any form of reporting for sexual disease.  The West Australian law recognizes the wisdom of providing the patient having sexual disease with every safeguard for his secret provided he conforms to the requirement of the law in the continuance of his treatment.  German sentiment is strongly against reporting, and no provision is made for it in the civil population.  On the other hand, the very complete programs of the Scandinavian countries provide for reporting cases without names.  It is, therefore, apparent, in view of this conflict of opinion, that we can afford to watch the experience of our neighbors a little longer before committing ourselves to the risk of arousing antagonism over a detail whose importance in the scheme of attack on syphilis is at best secondary to the fundamental principles of efficient treatment and diagnosis.  There is no apparent reason why we should not be satisfied, for the present, at least, with drawing to our aid everything which can give us the confidence and the willing cooeperation of those we want to reach.  Physicians who work with large numbers of these patients realize that privacy is one of the details which has an attraction that cannot be ignored.