Euthanasia Controversy Rages In Britain

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28888, 7 May 1959, Page 15

Euthanasia Controversy Rages In Britain

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, May 6. Dr. Maurice Millard, the 58-year-old British doctor who raised a storm of controversy when he admitted giving an 80-year-old, incurably ill woman patient a lethal drug, said yesterday it was nonsense to call it “mercy killing.”

He said, according to the “Daily Sketch”: “What I did—after discussing the case with her family, and after she had made her peace with God—was to give her a drug to put her to sleep, and keep her asleep until she died. “There are cases in which a single aspirin can be lethal—but that is not killing.” Dr. Millard said he was astounded by the publicity the case caused. He had revealed it during a speech on euthanasia at a Rotary Club luncheon. He is a member of the Euthanasia Society, founded by his father, who was Medical Officer for Leicester.

charge of hospital wards which had a large number of cancer patients.

“What I did was illegal, though the drugs were not lethal, as in Dr. Millard’s case.” Dr. McDonald said the Euthanasia Society seeks legislation to protect both patient and doctor, and to allow the patient to ask for euthanasia as a human right.

The “Daily Express” said the Chief Constable of Leicester, Dr Robert Mark, would make no comment yesterday about Dr. Millard’s “confession.” But the newspaper said it understood that all reports of the doctor’s story were being collected and carefully studied. The disciplinary body of the medical profession, the General Medical Council, said: “Somebody would have to make a complaint before proceedings would be started.”

The “Daily Sketch” said that while he supervised a polio clinic in Leicester yesterday and spent several hours “visiting,” many of his patients described him as a “fine doctor” and ‘‘a good and godly man.” The “Daily Express” reported that Dr. Charles Knight McDonald. pathologist at Lewisham Hospital and chairman of the Euthanasia Society, said he had “followed the same course” as Dr Millard. Dr. McDonald, aged 47, said: “I have personally given drugs which I knew would shorten life to a patient dying in intolerable pain. “Nothing Exceptional” “This is nothing exceptional— I think there must be very few doctors who have not done the same sort of thing. It was about 20 years ago, when I was in

A British Medical Association spokesman said: “The doctor’s whole duty is to relieve pain, and it is entirely a matter for his own conscience what he does to effect this.” Other comments were:

Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, former president of the Methodist Conference: “I applaud his action, although he may be struck off.” Dr. Donald Soper, another leading Methodist: “I am in favour of allowing people to die rather than keep them alive, and I think that is different from euthanasia. I would not use drugs primarily designed to end life.”