A CHALLENGE!

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10376, 6 April 1927, Page 5

A CHALLENGE!

SALAMAN TO THE DOCTORS ALLEGED FRAUD CASE EVIDENCE BY ACCUSED , AUCKLAND, April 5. The hearing of six charges of attempting to obtain from David John O’Carroll and Charles Lawrence Packman, sums of money totalling £3 15s 9d, by falsely representing he was a person capable of diagnosing and curing ailments, and skilled in the treatment of disease, preferred against the Indian herbalist “Atah” Abraham Wally Mahamid Salaman, aged 40, (Mr Schram), was continued in the Police “Court to-day. Mr W. R. McKean, S.M., was on the Bench, and Chief Detective Cummings prosecuted. Salaman told the Court that some of liis patients were so grateful to him that they had presented him with medals,- and he produced some, several of which were suitably inscribed. G

. Salaman then issued a challenge to the doctors-: ‘."lf they like to take ten patients from the Auckland hospital I will diagnose them agaiusr, a 113/ doctor in Auckland”, he said. He added lie was prepared to pay £SO to the hospital funds if they discredited him. - .

Cross-examined, Salaman admitted he was not registered as a chemist, or as a medical practitioner in any country in the world. Chief Detective Cummings: “Yon were sentenced to a month on a similar offence to the present >one, and appealed to the Supreme Court err two occasions?

“They never gave to me the chance to defend the case”, Salaman complained. I acquired a knowledge of the stethoscope when I made a telephone when I was a hoy in India. ’

“You gave all your patients all the same medicine, irrespective of wliat they are suffering from ” asked Chief Detective Cummings. “Oh, no; I learn from- India and I am still learning”, he said. In reply to a question regarding Iris qualifications and the- statement that both constables had no faitn m him he said:- “All the others had faith.” You give your patients - pills?--Oh, yes. With medicine?—l won’t give any information. “I won’t tell what the bottles contained”, Salaman said, when the chief detective asked him about his stock at present at the police station. “Did your ancestors believe in the patent medicines that he used now”, asked the chief detective. “I never give patent medicines,” said Salaman'. Are you prepared to tell us wliat profit you have made dur.ng the last twelve months?—l can’t tell. Do _ you believe in surgery.? —Oh, yes; in some cases. Would you feel yourself qualified to perform an operation?—Oh, no. “They’re suffering from _ complaints I put .down here”, said Sa-. laman, by way of cheering up the two constables who had visited him. “The doctors are against nf’, was his reply to what three medical men said about him yesterday. “No”, he said, when asked if he had shown indecent cards to any of his patients. Several witnesses, who claimed to have been cured by the accused, then gave evidence. Annie Maria Marshall said her son was operated cn for cancer when only a fortnight old. Dr.- Garrick Robertson and Dr. Sweet stated that there was no hope for him. Salaman had prescribed donkey’s milk, mare’s milk, or goat’s milk for the child. Goat’s milk was given and the trouble disappeared, and the child had been in good health since.

At this stage the hearing was adjourned till to-morrow.—-P.A.