UNQUALIFIED MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 108, 10 May 1881, Page 2

UNQUALIFIED MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS.

? That it is very wrong for unqualified medical practitioners to meddle with serious diseases is a principle that has been frequently insisted upon in these columns. Some remarks made uponthis subject by the Coroner, Dr. Johnston, at an inquest over which he presided yesterday, seem, however, to us, although correct enough as regards the general principle, to have beon utterly uncalled-for in the particular instance under notice. A married woman addicted, unfortunately, to habits of intemperance, died Buddenly on Saturday last from syncope. No medical man, it appeared, had been troating the unfortunate woman within a recent period, and there was no evidence, in fact, that she had been prescribed for by anybody at all; but the eaglo e>e of the Coroner descried a luckless chemist present at tho inquest, and by some extraordinary species of intuition he proceeded to connect him with the case. As a medical man, Dr. Johnston may possibly be led to doubt the wisdom of chemists being allowed to exist at all, unless thoy confine their attention Btrictly to purveying fancy Eoaps, tooth powders, and other commodities of the kind, for, as medical men in this colony usually disponbe their own medicines, the learned coroner may arguo that the talo of drugs i 8 by no means a valid raison de.re for the hapless pharmaceutist to plead. At any rate, tho inquest yesteraay seemed too favorable an opportunity of ventilating hjs views c n the great " Doctor v. Chemist" question to be lightly abandoned. Accordingly he began, in his summing up to the jury, to expend a good deal of indignation on the impropriety of unqualified medical men presuming to practise the healing art. Fortunately, he did not direct the jury to bring in a verdict of manslaughter against the unhappy man at whom his thunders were directed, but ie seemed at ono time difficult to predict to what dreadfnl lengths he might proceed, when the chemist ventured to remark that he had not seen the deceased woman since tho 17th April, and thon he only treated her for an ulcerated mouth and soro throat. The Coroner was then graciously pleased to state that he did not say the chemist's conduct had ied to the death of the deceased woman, but he went on to make tho astounding' assertion that "it had put tho country to the expense of holding tho present inquest " Tho reason ho gave for this statement was, that although the chemist could treat tho deceased, he could not give a certificate as to the canse of her death. We fail to sec how Mr. Fitzgera'd, the chemist in question, was in any way responsible for what occurred. He could not force the woman to call in a doctor, and it could not be said that

she relied upon his services in substitution for those of a medical man, because after the 17th April she had no professional advice at all. It is clear, therefore, that it was owing to tho neglect of the unfortunate woman herself, to see a doctor, that the inquest was rendered necessary, and not because some three weeks before she died a chemist happened to treat her for lore throat. If Dr. Johnston urges, as he seems to do by implication, tSat if a dute qualified medic?.! nutapiff the woi&an for such till ailment on the 17th April he could tell what she died of on the 7th May, we are afraid that the public will not be inclined to attach so much importance to the value of medical certificates in future as they have done in the past. When Dr. Johnston has again any remarks to make in reference to what he may consider a public evil, he should be careful that the particular instance he has in view justifies his comments ; otherwise his strictures may lose the effect of a judicial condemnation, and ma^ bd regP-tded Hy^ bUe puMi? 1 aa siniply the outcome of professional Joaldusy.