B.M.A. CRTICISED.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 30 June 1928, Page 5

B.M.A. CRTICISED.

“HUGE TRADE UNION.” (By Telegraph —Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Friday. “I-am.not a member of the British Medical Association, nor am I on speaking terms with many of them, but from what I see of them in their ears there is not too much of the milk of human kindness about them. Lam not blaming individual members at all. I blame the system, which is at fault.” This statement was made at a public meeting at Auckland last night by Dr. (E. S. Dukes, 'his address being advertised as “Medical Ignorance and Worse.”

Dr. Dukes severely criticised the methods of the 8.M.A., which he characterised as a huge trade union. He was inclined to agree with Oliver Wendel Holmes, who had said that if all doctors and drugs were thrown into the sea it would be better for the world. Sir James Barr, who was president of the B.M.A. in. England in 1927, had said that surgeons made their living out of the ignorance and the utter incompetence of physicians, medical science had been long at a • standstill, and that disease was more prevalent tb.-day than half a century ago., ■ Dr. Dukes then said that doctors should be paid by results, and in cases ot death should be compelled to pay frneral expenses. Without health, he said, life was a burden, and doctors had failed. All the medical men set out to do was to make money. Fashions in medicine had changed without lessening.the death-rate. Medicine was a business, and there were too many temptations put in the way of doctors. After answering a number of questions, and a suggestion* had been made by a member of the audience that a society should be formed with members included who were not attached to the 8.M.A., Dr. Dukes was accorded a vote of thanks.