The New Campaign

Abstract

Following the failure of the Royal Commission to recommend the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts there were some within the Repeal movement who believed that the campaign should be put on a more scientific footing. In late 1874 the National Medical Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (NMA) was instituted under the leadership of the Liverpool consultant, John Birkbeck Nevins. The NMA published its own journal, the Medical Enquirer, in an attempt to redress the medical press’s regulationist bias. Historians of the CD Acts have tended to dismiss the significance of the NMA. Recent studies of the Acts have tended to concentrate on the influence of social puritanism on the campaign for Repeal. This has meant that the Repeal campaign is conflated with other social purity campaigns, such as the raising of the age of consent. As a result, opponents of the Acts have been characterized as narrow-minded and prudish and their actions have been seen as restricting the liberty of the working-class woman. The scandalous impact of other social purity campaigns has meant that the discussion of the medical campaign for repeal is generally ignored.¹