AGED SURGEON TELLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 150, 27 June 1934, Page 7

AGED SURGEON TELLS.

DOCTORS WHO TAKE LIFE

LONDON, June 21. "I look forward to the time when the medical profession will he empowered to sentence to death those unfit to live owing to disease or crime and also to the granting of permits to the old and worn-out wishing to go to the lethal chamber," said Sir George Buckston Browne, the famous retired surgeon, at the annual dinner of the Harveian Society. "We spend thousands and thousands," he added, "on asylums for congenital and incurable idiots whose miserable existences monopolise trained nurses and officially do all possible to prolong the sufferings of broken-down bodies. I should not care to say how many cases I have known where doctors have bravely taken the law into their own hands and helped the old to an easy way from life or have taken steps so that monstrous idiot babies should never live. "It is time the law relieved us of the responsibility by a responsible council, able to accord the boon of painless death. It should contain doctors and lawyers —the latter to ensure that crimes are not committed by persons wishing to get rid of aged relatives— but clergy should not be appointed." Sir George Buckston Browne, who is 84 years of age, had a noted career as a surgeon. In memory of his son, who was killed in the war, he endowed the Harveian Society's biennial surgical prize and the annual dinner of the, society.