THE SALAMAN CASE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19241, 1 December 1930, Page 8

THE SALAMAN CASE

THERE IS NOT a quack doctor under the sun whose treatment may not have appeared to benefit some of his dupes, for Nature is the great healer, and every Indian and Chinese herbalist —and Australia is full of them — might count his “ successes ” by the dozen even if he prescribed nothing but coloured water for his treatment. Therefore, the petition for the release of Salaman, the Indian impostor who is serving a year’s imprisonment in connection with the death of a boy, is not worth a moment’s consideration by the Government. We have built up a system of medical training and examination and registration, not for the protection of the medical profession, but for the protection of the public, and the strange thing is that we permit so many charlatans to practise openly, well knowing that the majority of them are rank impostors. And when one of them, like Salaman, is convicted by a jury of twelve men, after receiving a British trial, it is simply ludicrous to ask that he should be allowed to continue a course for which even the petitioners would be prepared to admit he has been properly convicted.