LETHAL CHAMBERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22352, 28 August 1934, Page 8

LETHAL CHAMBERS

FOR THE UNFIT VIEWS OP EMINENT SURGEON. “ The time may come when we shall destroy the imperfect, the hopeless idiots, the hopeless criminals, the hopeless lunatics, and when the medical men will have the power of giving certificates to the aged and hopelessly diseased which would admit them to public lethal chambers.” Such was the possibility envisaged in an interview he gave a representative of the London Daily Telegraph by Sir Buckston Browne, the 84-year-old retired surgeon. He was explaining the reasons for the views he expressed at a public dinner the previous night. The human body, he declared, was now shown to be the finest product of all the natural forces that work on this planet. “I think it is heartbreaking to hear of a man, say, with a hopeless disease, attempting to commit suicide, then failing, and being brought up in a police court and charged. Suicide is said to be the act of a coward. It is frequently the act of a very brave man.

“ I say definitely that what I have outlined is a definite possibility. We do this for dogs. Indeed, at a dogs’ home not long ago the manager showed me a letter from a man asking if there yras any possibility of his being admitted into a lethal chamber. He was a man who wanted to die.

“ It is, of course, illegal for any medical man to help a human being out of the world. A man has to suffer to the bitter end.

" The Greeks destroyed the imperfect young. I would destroy the unfit. Naturally, it must only be decided by the very elect of the medical profession, and they should have lawyers associated with them. We ought to have lethal chambers in every large centre. “ I know those views will be received with great opposition by the clergy. My answer to them would be nothing but facts —eugenics, improvement of the race, and abolition of unnecessary suffering. New we are struggling to keep the unfit alive, and you and I have to pay for huge asylums for idiots and lunatics all over the country. It is money absolutely wasted.”