OFFER TO SCIENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 14 October 1933, Page 6

OFFER TO SCIENCE

MAN'S BODY FOR EXPERIMENTS A FORBIDDEN SACRIFICE The story of a man of 38 who recently offered lus living body to medical science, —a sacrifice forbidden by. law-—is told by Mr H. de Wintoti Wiglev in the News-Chronicle. The man’s proposal was that while lie lived in tlie laboratories. In’s blond stream .might be inoculated with deadly; diseases for expert mental purposes.) The man proposed that doctors should introduce into his system any disease they cho-e. lie suggested one of the following lour;- Cancer’- tuberculosis,; leprosy or epileptic seizures. He said lie did not wish his name to made public at- present. Speaking of the man, Mr Wigle-y said:—"lie is not a fanatic, nor is he mad lie is not doing this for the sake money to lie paid to himself or his dependants. He is not an embittered man, tired of life. He is certainly religious, with the love of his fellow men deep in his heart, and ho def eated Iris life to the service of God and his feli'.ows. Hut his health failed. He went to China as a missionary and had to J give up that work. Ho served in a I colony for epileptics, but bis body fail- ! ,ed him again, lie is precluded from j preaching, and ho turned to see where it was possible for a man like him, suffering and handicapped hv a disease that the doctors cannot name and so have failed to cure, still to do the work to which lie has dedicated himself. | “This man has seen terrible suffering I

He has been in hospital seven times since he returned from China and has just finished a period of nine months •in Charing Cross and other hospitals, ft was while he lay there watching the devotion of tire doctors and torn by the human suffering around him that this great thought came.

NO WISH TO POSE AS HERO

“The man -would give his own body so that doctors might do with it- as they Will —inoculate it, study it, and experiment upon it. Perhaps is would help in this eternal light with disease and death. And this is his pffer to science.”

“There is no wish by this man to be tajeon as a hero. He is a small man on whose face can he seen the lines of suffering. But it is a cheerful face, the ..face of a man who loves Iris fellow men and who can take a delight in the .-jworld of men. Talking with him you ,see at 01, ice that he has studied this great step from every angle and is cognisant of all that it means to himself and to his fellow men. He talks quietly as one who has decided and lias no regrets. There is no light of noble exaltation in his *eye. t\ “The man is like one who at the call for volunteers quietly steps forward and waits for-orders. I think of Horatius sanely realising that the bridge must be kept against fearful odds. A Londoner by birth, he has no wife . or family or living parents. But he has brothers and people whom he loves .flearly. “The man made his first offer to a well-known research laboratory, but found there is a law which would render a-,doctor liable to prosecution if anything went wrong witli the experiments. If lie died the doctor would be liable to proceedings for manslaughter. The 1 quest.on is whether legislation permitting such experiments should be promoted.

VOLUNTEER CORPS SUGGESTED

“This,man I am telling you of, hopes that he may get a Corps of Medical Research Volunteers actuated by similar motives to himself who would place themselves at the service of doctors, as do the members of the Blood Transfusion Society, 'if the Jaw would allow it. This possibility, too. is before the medical men. who are considering this wonderful offer.

“Now talk to the man, probe him. as I d'd sitting opposite him to-day. He suggests his living body might be most useful in the war on cancer. Cancer. he says, does not reveal itself for years. Doctors cannot study it in its early stages because they cannot get at it soon enough. “I thought,” ho said, “that'they might grow a cancer on my arm and experiment on it.”

“The man does not limit himself to cancer.

. “They can inoculate me,” lie says, “with any germ, serum or vaccine, whether malignant or curative, for treatment by drugs, medicines, diets, anaesthetics or rays, tried or untried, am cl for any operation or amputation ‘in the interests of research for the finding of cures for the diseases of both mankind and animals.

“Would you be willing to he inoculated with sleepy sickness?” the man was asked. “Yes,” he said, “or infantile paralysis. My personal offer is to be ‘inoculated with any germ or serum or anything of that sort whether it be curative or malignant. lam willing to undergo any treatment for those things—medicine, diet or to the extent of amputation.”

CONTRARY TO THE LAW A doctor engaged in medical research, to whom the offer was referred said “The man you speak of, called on me and offered himself while alive, for any operation or experiment in the laboratories wo might choose. I have not the ■ slightest doubts of his sincerity or of the fine motives that prompted him. It is a magnificent offer and lie is a brave man honestly actuated by a dek.'re to do good. But I told him that the law would not allow me to take advantage of the offer.” Mr Wigley proceeds:—‘ ‘We talked^;