APPEAL COURT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 64, 30 October 1911, Page 5

APPEAL COURT.

(Per Press Association.)

Wellington, October 30. In tin Incase Rex v. Brown, the Court held that the Judge’s direction of the jury was proper, and confirmed the conviction. The case was one of concealment of birth, and the Judge directed the jury that it was not necessary they should have evidence of the finding and identification of the body of the child before finding prisoner guilty. The reserved judgment was delivered this morning in the case of Lucona v. National Mutual Life Association. The Court held that the protection afforded medical men and their parents by section 8 (2) of the Evidence Act of 1908, by which a medical man cannot be compelled, without the consent of a patient, to divulge in any civil proceeding any communication made to him in his professional capacity by such patient, applied only to communications—oral, written, or by signs—made to a physician or surgeon necessary to enable him to prescribe or act for the patient, and did not extend to information gained by a surgeon during tho examination of a patient in the case of an operation.

The Court adjourned till December 18th.