LETHAL CHAMBERS FOR MANKIND

Taranaki Daily News, 15 September 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

LETHAL CHAMBERS FOR MANKIND

Possibility Envisaged By An English Surgeon “HHIE time may come when we shall destroy the imperfect, the hopeless idiots, the hopeless criminals, the hopeless lunatics, and when the doctors 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 to the “Daily Telegraph” by Sir Buckston Browne, the 84-year-old retired surgeon. 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 was 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 these 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. Now 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.”