THE CASE OF JAMES CAPSTICK

Otago Witness, Issue 3316, 3 October 1917, Page 58

THE CASE OF JAMES CAPSTICK

To the Editor dtago Daily Times.

iSir, —In a sub-leader in your issue of 25th hist, you express curiosity as to certain facts in connection with the late James Capstick. It seems to me that it would have been more in keeping with the standard of your paper if you iiad satisfied that curiosity before publishing your remarks on tho case.

The following arc the facts in so far as they concern the relations between Capstick and the Cromwell Hospital:— Ho was a patient, except for two short periods, of this hospital ior about two years. In course of time he was called up by the ballot for military service. He proceeded to Alexandra to bo examined, obtaining leave from mo to do so. On his return the same day ho informed me, to my great surprise, tiiat he had been passed as fit for active service, and asked me not to take any steps to prevent his going. I told him that it was a matter beyond my authority, but that I would have to report to the Hospital Committee, and that, seeing his dangerous condition, he could not stay in the town. I further told him that as ho was still/an undischarged patient of the Cromwell Hospital, ho was to stay there until I reported to the. committee. The committee, through its chairman, authorised me to inform the North Otago Military Headquarters at Oamaru 'of tho facts of the case. This I did, but I received no reply until the morning Capstick left for Trentham—too late to stop him. The military authorities, however, detrained him at Ranfurly, and he returned to Cromwell. He did not, as you suggest, go on to Dunedin.

I saw him the morning after his return, and advised him to return to the Cromwell Hospital, but this he absolutely refused to do. As he was now an attested soldier ho wa . under tho control of the _ military authorities (who knew of his condition), and I had no jurisdiction in the matter. He informed me that as a Medical Board had expressed an opinion diametrically opposed to mine he was inclined to accept the board's estimate of his health. He next went to light work on a station up country and I asked him to return to the Cromwell Hospital, and see me if his condition did not improve. The next communication I had from him, however, was a telephone message from Dunedin left at'my house during my absence telling me that the military authorities were going to arrest him, and asking me to wire him a certificate. This I did, concluding that he had been called up for further medical examination, and had possibly not notified any change of address. I heard nothing more about him until I was informed of his sudden death from

hemorrhage. So the facts of his case briefly are that he was never discharged from this hospital, but on being accepted for active service and attested he automatically passed under the control of the military authorities, who issued no instructions to me regarding him except that he would be reexamined. —I am, etc., F.oiiEKT A. Shore Medical Superintendent Cromwell Hospital. Cromwell, September 26.

fDr Shore's letter clears up the position in so far as the relations between the unfortunate man and the Cromwell Hospital arc concerned. It amply confirms, also, our own version of the case. It is true that doubt is cast upon our statement that Capstick had been discharged from Cromwell Hospital. As, however, Dr Shore admits that he had no authority to require Capstick to return to the hospital and as Capstick disregarded Dr Shore's advice that ha should do so the statement that he was discharged does not really need much qualification. Even although Capstick was not discharged from the hospital with tho consent of the medical superintendent, it cannot bo surprising that we accepted as correct the'intimation that he had actually been discharged, because no one would ever have expected that any medical board would pass rs fit for active service a person who was an in-patient of a hospital, suffering from consumption so advanced that he was in a dangerous condition. The information which Dr Shore supplies concerning tho case leaves two important matters yet to bo settled. One is as to the quality of the medical examination which passed into tho ranks of the Expeditionary Force a man who was apparently in tho last stages or consumption. The other is as to the measure of protection that is afforded to the public when a man, whose condition was so dangerous that he could not, according to Dr Shore, stay in the town of Cromwell, was at liberty to secure accommodation in an hotel in Dunedin, and to obtain employment, amongst a number of other persons, in a factory in Dunedin, after he had travelled presumably in the company of a number of other people in a railway carriage, from Central Otago to Dunedin. From the point of view of the public, this letter is a most serious matter. —Ed. O.D.T.]