MEDICAL QUACKERY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20509, 10 January 1935, Page 5

MEDICAL QUACKERY.

Law Amendments Sought to Check Duping. HYPNOTISM “CURES.” (Special to the “Star.”) MELBOURNE, January 2. Because he considers Victoria to be a “ hotbed of medical quackery,” in which hypnotism had been used, the retiring secretary of the British Medical Association (Mr C. Stanton Crouch) has urged amending legislation to make it an offence for any person to prescribe or dispense medicines, or to act as a medical practitioner, without being registered with the Medical Board of Victoria. Mr Crouch has retired after almost twenty-one years at the head of the B.M.A. organising side. In that time he has conducted a continuous campaign against the improper use of medical titles and medical pretence. Now he intends to act as prosecutor in “ quack ” cases until the responsibility is lifted from him by the 8.M.A.. or an amendment of the Act makes it possible for the police to take direct action. Present Law. The present law reads that no person, unless registered, shall pretend to be, or take the title of medical practitioner, the information to be laid by any citizen. A ruling given in a court case some years ago, Mr Crouch said, precluded the police from being the informant. “ The present law is sufficient to protect the titles of medical men,” Mr Crouch said. “But under it a person may practise medicine without being registered as a doctor. Victoria is overrun with quacks. I have launched Imore than 100 successful prosecutions and have had the name of doctor removed from more than 200 names. “Something must be done to stop the present pernicious practices, and tc

stop, too, the exploitation of the public by men who feed on the credulity of the public. “ The cases they get are, in many cases, those which doctors honestlv say they can do no more w'ith. Clutching at the last straw, like a drowning man, the patients go to the quacks, who set themselves up in rooms in Collins Street, to give distinction to their alleged professions. “ Returned Worse.” “ Then begins a period of specious treatment. Sometimes there are cures, effected principally by the autosuggestion reaction of the patient, not the medicines given. But more frequently the patient is returned, worse off. to a registered medical man. “ This sort of thing can go on under the present laws in a profession where lives are so often at stake. Yet one cannot put a washer on a tap without infringing the law-s governing plumbers ! ” Giving instances of treatment, Mr Crouch said that he prosecuted in a case in which hypnotism had been very successfully used in duping a patient, but not as a cure. A child with convulsions had been treated by means of a piece of raw steak placed over an eye. The “ operator ” had produced a centipede saying that it must have entered the child’s ear, made its way to the brain and, attracted by the meat, came out of the nose. Yet there was no passage from nose to brain. Mr Crouch was w ? ell fitted for his “ career ” as prosecutor by schooling begun at Wesley College, and ended at the University, after he had graduated as barrister and solicitor in 1892. He, however, did not go into practice, but I took up a post as master at Geelong College and later at Wesley. He joined the B.M.A. in February, 1914. He has seen the Victorian branch of the B.M.A. grow from an organisation of 600 members and an honorary : secretary with offices in a hall, to one of 1400 members (98 per cent of the doctors registered here). lie has made * its growth his career. While being in- > terviewed, he was interrupted with:—

A telephone call. “ Dr -- you want. Yes. He is not a member of the B.M A, but you will find him at . He has been practising there for some months.” . , Mr Crouch will tell you. without book reference, the name, locality and a little of the career, of any registered doctor in Victoria. , And, if you prompt him. a lot about 1 those who' are not registered, too.