increase from 2,000 to 19,000 in the number of members, and the growth of the British Medical Journal from 20 to 64 pages, during his editorship. From 1872 to 1897 he was chairman of the Association's Parliamentary Bill Committee. Beginning his collections by contacting Tadamasa Hayashi in 1882, Hart became a prominent collector of Japanese Art and later joined the Japan Society, frequently giving lectures on subjects such as Lacquerware.See , Notes on the history of lacquer : a paper read before the Japan Society of London, Ernest Hart, Japan Society, 1893 In 1891 he travelled to Japan with his second wife, Alice Hart. Hart was also editor and proprietor of The Sanitary Record for a period, and chairman of the National Health Society. Vaccination In 1880, Hart authored the book The Truth About Vaccination''. It refuted the arguments made by anti-vaccinators. Each anti-vaccination allegation was disproved with medical and statistical evidence. Hart demonstrated from a vast body of evidence the advantages of how a vaccinated person can resist an attack of smallpox, compared to those un-vaccinated. Selected publications An account of the condition of the infirmaries of London workhouses, 1866 The Truth About Vaccination: An Examination and Refutation of the Assertions of the Anti-Vaccinators (1880) Hypnotism, Mesmerism and the New Witchcraft (1896) Family Hart married his first wife, Rosetta Levy, in 1855. He married his second wife, in 1872, Alice Marion Rowland, the sister of social reformer Henrietta Barnett. Rowland had herself studied medicine in London and Paris, and was no less interested than her husband in philanthropic reform. She was most active in her encouragement of Irish cottage industries, and was the founder of the Donegal Industrial Fund. References Further reading External links 1835 births 1898 deaths People from the City of London British medical writers British ophthalmologists 19th-century English medical doctors English male journalists British Jews Medical journalists 19th-century British journalists Medical journal editors 19th-century English male writers Vaccination advocates