SHOULD A DOCTOR TELL?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18747, 28 December 1922, Page 5

SHOULD A DOCTOR TELL?

THE MEDICAL VIEWPOINT. , ‘‘Should a doctor tell?” asked Colonel Nathan Raw, speaking at tho annual dinner at the llolborn Restaurant, London, of tho Medical Practitioners’ Union, Colonel Raw said ho was perfectly certain that every person in that, room was of the fixed opinion that tho doctors’ confidence should be kept sacred. The legal profession, of course, was actuated entirely by their desire to carry out justice, and therefore they had not the same regard for the privacy and the confidence of the medical man. 1 Tho sanctity of the relation between a doctor and his patient must in no circumstances be broken, except in the courts of law, where, justice must be carried out. Another question which was exorcising the mind of the medical profession was the question of criminal responsibility. It was easy for judges and lawyers to jeer, and say they wore not going to bo dictated to by Ilarlov street, but the law must bo advised by the medical profession, which -had to give their observations and their sound medical opinion on the mental condition of anyone accused of crime. The medical profession, therefore, would have to formulate soma sound judgment as to where criminal responsibility ended and where vicious murder begun. LJ-JLS..