MEDICAL CONFERENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19905, 27 September 1926, Page 3

MEDICAL CONFERENCE.

BRITISH ASSOCIATION. {PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL. (Feom Oca Own Cobeespondent.) ' LONDON, July 30. Mr Robert George Hogarth (senior surgeon of the General Hospital, Nottingham) is the president of the British Medical Association Conference this year being held at Nottingham. Some striking passages figured in his official address to the delegates, among the subjects touched upon being that of spiritual healing and the disciplinary powers of the General Medical Council. Alluding to the recent agitation against the General Medical Council, the president remarked that practically the only criticism directed against the council arose frotri the fidelity with which in these days of growing laxity it hqd maintained its jealous regard for the purity of its register of membership. “The rule against professional self-advertising is unquestionably in the public interest. Whether wc like it or not, that school of thought is prevailing which holds that the open forum is the best of all popular educators, that igiibrancc is the greatest of all dangers, and that ' publicity alone can create the new public opinion out of which it is hoped there may issue a higher moral sense find a stronger self-control. The public Press will devote more and more space to the manifold problems of public health, and it is obviously desirable that what is written should be written with authority. No anonymous article a technical or professional subject carries the weight of the signed contribution, and if doctors write for the lay Press, as they will be urged to do with an ever-increasing insistence, the opportunities of professional self-advertisement will greatly multiply.

“Nevertheless, it is to the common interest of the profession and of the public (lint these temptations—not. indeed, to inform tlie public of what is for its good, but to inform it in such a way as to advertise and glorify the writer and conduce to his personal gain—shall be resisted, and that the Medical Council shall still continue to exercise its powerful restraints. Many borderline cases arc bound to occur, as they do at present, but I assume that the council will continue to act with that judicial discretion which has on several occasions received the acknowledgment of the highest legal authorities. UNQUALIFIED PRACTITIONERS. “As for the unqualified practitioner, I say without hesitation that the Medical Council cannot and must not recognise him, and therefore cannot and must not abate its strong reprobation of co~ering. To do so would be to stultify itself and the register, which is its special creation and instrument. It dapnbti to bornv an expression from another profession, recognise any orders but its own. Ido not mean that it should seek to induce the State, as is done in some countries, to make unqualified practice illegal. Even if that were desirable the public would not permit it. Public opinion, if I may aay so, has a sporting fancy for th«» outsider, and outsiders, even the rankest, do sometimes win. But, though rare and exceptional cases may arise, the council cannot extend either the bow of Inendship or the nod of recoghilibh to any unqualified practitioner without placing itself in a false position. If an unqualified practitioner really discovers a new curse or treatment for one of the ills of humanity, his consulting room will not long remain empty of patients If his method is genuine it will endure, and, soon or late, it will win general recognition. But no one can reasonable expect admission to the Medical Register—or to and appendix thereto—by any except the approved channel. "The plain truth remains that behind the rare—the very rare—unqualified practitioners of whose success so much is made, but whose failures pass unrecorded, there are scores of other practitioners of technique Ancient and modern, Chaldean and Transatlantic, who are eager to take advantage of anjr momentary opening of the door which it is the declared policy of the General Medical council to keep tightly shut. A selfish, obscurantist policy would he totally coritrary to the free spirit of inquiry which animates the medical science of to-day. _ But this is neither selfish nor obscurantist. Whatever in any modern technique is tested and proved good is sure of eventual adoption, and not even the gates of the General Medical Council will prevail against it I But the tests and the proofs must be such as are recognised by that universal medical science which talks a common language throughout the world, and which alone can securely judge.” THE ..ELIGIOUS HEALER. Passing on to the subject of the religious healer, Mr Hogarth said that science had long since framed her own laws of method and proof which were recognised throughout th., world, and the medical profession could have no commerce with any newly-ojganised cult which denied the very basis on which those laws were founded. “But this is not to say that no friendly co-operation is possible between doctors and those who are earnestly studying the healing power of the mind. Let there be no contention about names; when we speak of mind or soul, let us freely admit that we_ cannot take a specimen of either on a slide and put it under a microscope. That there is a certain healing power, a true vis medioatrix, in religion as in Nature, few careful observers would, I think, deny. Between religion nd Nature, between mind and body, there exists not an opposition hut a relation Every medical man of experience must have_ known cases in which his own scientific skill has seemed to be helped, sometimes most strangely and wonderfully, by some serenity of mind in the patient, some quiet confidence in the ultimate issue, some realisation of sure dependence upon a higher power, some tranquilising influence of the soul upon the physical stress and tumult of the SPn^P .-_.‘'bßneficiont. soothing, healing activities in which he and his art ha\e had little or no share. A DIVINE GIFT. “These facts are not reducible to formulae. Science cannot explain them ns she can explain the operation of on anodvne stealing along the passage ways of sense. We do not, indeed, know very much about that mysterious parallel road, which always lies in deep shadow, where the mind of the soul, reacting to a spirit which seems to come from without, influences profoundly in its turn the body which the doctor is trying to heal. _ There is no place in respect of this region for dogmatic utterance; but there is always room for patient and reverent inquiry. The whole of our profession will await wiht impartial mind the result of the labours of the joint committee which was appointed some months ago to investigate the phenomena of what is gc ally called spiritual healing. “Meanwhile, I say with confidence that any systematised creed which professes to dispense with the art of_ medicine and surgery is false to the Divine. But if any possess the precious gift of ministering to the mind diseased or of imparting to those who walk in the shadow of the valley the courage to move serenely among the phantoms and terrors which haunt that road, let us be sure that so divine a gift can only emanate from a divine source, and let us welcome the help of any unseen wings that stir the air with healing.”