MURDER CHARGE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 23, 27 January 1912, Page 7

MURDER CHARGE.

"STARVATION" DOCTOR ON TRIAL MEDICAL TESTIMONY. By Telegraph.— Pros* Association.— Copyright. NEW YORK, 26th January. The trial of Mrs. Hazzard, the "starvation doctor," on a charge of murder' iug Misn Claire Williamson, was continued yesterday. A number of doctors testified that Miss Williamson died from starvation. They also said that Mrs. Hazzard 's treatment had accelerated her death. The defendant asserted that the doctors had conspired against her system of healing, hence their testimony at the trial. STARVATION CURE REVIEWED; In a pamphlet on her fasting treatment and on her "persecution" by doctors and the law, " Dr" Linda Burliold Hazzard reviews eight separate cases (in about half of which death ensued) in which she was accused at Seattle either with starving her patient to death or with giving treatment calculated to cause death. In one of these coses Mrs. Hazzard was arrested and was charged with practising medicine without a license and with having placod .tho word " doctor " before her name, her conviction in this case was quashed .on appeal. The views and statements of her enemies (which Dr. H&zzard quotes liberally) show that her fasting treatment, whatever its consequences, was regarded as. being outside tne reach of murder or manslaughter laws. The case cabled is therefore of much importance as a test. The difficulty of- proving that a diseased person died not from the disease but from lack of food is obvious, especially where the disease is extreme ,and the patient has entered upon the "starvation cure" with full knowledge and as a last resort. In reply to all the charge* made against her, Dr. Hazzard argues her case with much force, and does not neglect to make any point against her accusers. Finally she reviews the Williaratson charge (now pending), and comments that the injustice of the antagonism against her " is exemplified in the fact that virtually all financial returns from a large practice have had to be devoted to the defence of the attacks made on me personally. Were it not that I am so fully convinced of the logic and , truth of the method" I advocate, and that ' I feel that I have proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that fasting is always a successful means for the . restoration of health when organic disease is not present, I should have abandoned my work years ago. But in every death that has occurred under my care, a post mortem examination has invariably disclosed that death resulted not from the fast but from some irremoyable mechanical 'or structural defect in the body of the patient. And the successful cases are in number as the sands of. the sea. The medical world is now congratulating itself that a cat's paw is at. handto.push the case pending to a ruinous issue for both the cause and its advocate, but 'he laughs best who laughs last,'' and the truth canuot be overcome." Concerning the Williamson sisters, Claire (deceased) was aged 33 and her sister Dora is aged • 37. Both, Dr. Hazzard, states, had been ill for years, and had travelled the world in search of health* "They had convinced themselves of the efficacy of the fasting cure and had fully determined to place themselves under my care. After examination I felt that I was face to face with organic disease in both- sisters, and I positively refused to fast them. They begged me to reconsider, and t finally consented to place them upon restricted diet and to ply the accessories of the treatment, including the enema, baths, osteopathic manipulation, etc. The patient in question, Claire, weighed only 78 pounds in her clothes and was emaciated to the last degree; her circulation was most sluggish, and she complained of constant extreme exhaustion. "About two weeks after beginning treatment Claire was compelled to take 1 to her bed, and shortly after that in order to care for her in a proper manner [ I removed both sisters with their nurses to my own home. Claire gradually failed, however, and died on 19th May. The autopsy performed by a regular [ physician, Deputy-Coroner Borthwick, i and myself, revealed a liver completely cirrhosed, intestines that were contracted and adherent to the walls of the abdominal cavity throughout their length, and wfaicn were of infantile size as well. Here was another instance in which -no power on earth, could have saved the life of the sufferer. "Claire Williamson was in absolute sympathy with the method as applied. Her parents were long dead and she was possessed of an income that rendered her independent of her relatives. She was clear-minded and resolved upon her own method of procedure. She had infinite confidence in me and in the thought that the fight she was waging was a matter of last resort. When a month before she died I told her that her case might prove fatal, that there were discouraging signs, she calmly set about arranging her affairs, and prepared for what -proved to be the inevitable. The autopsy revealed the condition stated above, and the body was cremated in accordance with her written request under my direction. "Several weeks after her death a family servant arrived from, Australia to care for the surviving sister, Dora. This servant was most antagonistic to anything that savoured of non-orthodoxy in the treatment of disease and it developed that she had formerly done all in her power to prevent the Williamsons from taking such nature cures ac they had. Within a few weeks she had succeeded in undermining the faith of the remaining patient, Dora, who was beginning to convalesce ahd had gone to the extent of reporting the death of Claire to the British vice-consul at Tacoma, Wash. The latter in his zeal for fame caused a charge to be placed against me for murder in the first degree." •It is also stated thai; the sisters had previously been under treatment by "nature cure specialists" and "dietitians" in England.