- Email: [email protected]
TESTIMONIAL TO DR. HUTCHISON
217 administration and have developed an administrative technique which was working smoothly and successfully. Nor had they, Mr. Addly claimed, been satisfied merely to carry out their routine duties. They had pressed, and with success, for the reinstatement in medical benefit of persons who had lost the right to it through long-continued unemployment. In Edinburgh 1543 persons out of the 1843 who had been suspended from medical benefit were by this concession reinstated in benefit. In the whole of Scotland the corresponding figures were 30,000 and
34,000. He pointed out also that the committees have long been advocating the extension of the range of insurance medical services and the inclusion in medical benefit of the dependants of insured persons, and he claims that the insurance committees, with their long experience of insurance administration, are the proper bodies to administer such an extended service. The considerations put forward by Mr. Addly in his interesting address will doubtless be taken into account when the time comes to make the extensions he contemplates.
CORRESPONDENCE TESTIMONIAL TO DR. HUTCHISON
can never know. My opinion, which I believe to be supported by expert colleagues, is that the resulting mental strains would be likely to endanger the sanity of an immature adolescent girl, and that on mental grounds alone the abortion was justifiable. No responsible doctor wishes any unwise or hasty modification of the law regarding abortion. But few mental experts will have escaped either the necessity for giving an opinion on the question of therapeutic
to nurture whose father she own
To the Editor
of
THE LANCET
SiR,-The election of Dr. Robert Hutchison to the presidency of the Royal College of Physicians has given the greatest pleasure to a very wide circle of friends to whom Robert Hutchison has stood for all that is sound in the practice of medicine and all that is good in tradition. We feel that this occasion provides the opportunity of showing our esteem to him personally and acknowledging in some degree his fine contribution to medicine. It is proposed to commemorate the occasion by presenting Dr. Hutchison with his portrait and with this purpose in view we venture to make known the project to old students, friends, and societies in London, Edinburgh, and the provinces. Personal donations should not exceed three guineas. Cheques should be sent to the manager, National Provincial Bank, 10, Marylebone High-street, London, W.1, for the credit of the Robert Hutchison Testimonial Fund. We are, Sir, yours faithfully, LANCELOT BARRINGTON-WARD, ARTHUR MACNALTY, FREDERICK KAY MENZIES, GEORGE NEWMAN, GEORGE RIDDOCH, HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, BERTRAM SHIRES, FREDERICK STILL, G. A. SUTHERLAND, JAMES TAYLOR, JAMES WALTON, DAVID WILKIE.
HUBERT BOND, EDWIN BRAMWELL, DAWSON OF PENN, DUNCAN C. L. FITZWILLIAMS, FRANCIS FRASER, R. S. FREW (Hon. Treas.), WILLIAM GOSCHEN, F. J. MCCANN,
MACMILLAN, July, 1938.
ARTIFICIAL ABORTION FOLLOWING RAPE To the Editor
of THE
LANCET
SiR,-The admirable summary appearing in THE LANCET of July 9th, of the case in which artificial abortion following rape led to police-court proceedings against a valued colleague and friend, prompts me to write to call attention to the mental aspect of the case in question. May I be permitted to restate the case from the psychiatrist’s point of view ? A young girl, under the age of consent, is violently assaulted and raped by a number of adult males. As a result she becomes pregnant, at an age at which both law and medicine believe her to be physiologically immature and unfit to bear a full-time child. The circumstances of the assault in themselves constitute a vividly terrifying experience which might well precipitate mental symptoms. If the pregnancy had been allowed to continue, the young girl would have been submitted to the mental stresses imposed by a compulsory pregnancy with its daily, even hourly, reminders of the assault perpetrated upon her person. After nine months would come the further physiological stress of a difficult labour, giving her a child
abortion for mental reasons, or the uncomfortable that to advise abortion is to advise something I believe that this feeling is partly responsible for the classical " wait and see" attitude of the psychiatrist, who often waits until the patient is too far gone in mental illness for abortion to be therapeutically useful. It should not be beyond the ability of two learned professions to devise a formula to be as important which acknowledges " reason as " life," and which gives legal sanction to practitioners and experts alike to consider the " health " of the mother in a very wide sense. This case raises many interesting points, and I would crave space for one more. As the law stands the quality of the offspring is no concern of the doctors when abortion is under consideration. Accurate eugenic information remains scanty, but it can be accepted as proved that the child of a girl of fifteen years is likely to be weaker, mentally and physically, than the child of an adult woman. This letter is no plea for eugenic abortion, but I do suggest that doctors should be able to use the little knowledge they do possess of mental disease and its inheritance in relation to therapeutic abortion, without the feeling that a free judgment on any given case might involve them in criminal proceedings. I am not qualified to discuss the legal aspect of this particular case, but I do feel that this is one of those instances which the recently abolished Grand Jury would have dealt with successfully by failing to find a True Bill, thus saving much anxiety and distress to all concerned.
feeling illegal.
"
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G. W. B. JAMES. Harley-street, W., July 18th. INFANTICIDE
To the Editor
of
THE LANCET
SiR,-Now that Lord Dawson’s Infanticide Bill has become law, may I call attention to one aspect of the subject to which Lord Dawson made reference in his speech in the House of Lords on April 7th last, and to which you also alluded in your leading article of Jan. 22nd-namely, the medical as apart from the criminal side to these cases ? Lord Dawson reminded us that magistrates already possess the power to remand such cases on bail, pending trial,
34,000. He pointed out also that the committees have long been advocating the extension of the range of insurance medical services and the inclusion in medical benefit of the dependants of insured persons, and he claims that the insurance committees, with their long experience of insurance administration, are the proper bodies to administer such an extended service. The considerations put forward by Mr. Addly in his interesting address will doubtless be taken into account when the time comes to make the extensions he contemplates.
CORRESPONDENCE TESTIMONIAL TO DR. HUTCHISON
can never know. My opinion, which I believe to be supported by expert colleagues, is that the resulting mental strains would be likely to endanger the sanity of an immature adolescent girl, and that on mental grounds alone the abortion was justifiable. No responsible doctor wishes any unwise or hasty modification of the law regarding abortion. But few mental experts will have escaped either the necessity for giving an opinion on the question of therapeutic
to nurture whose father she own
To the Editor
of
THE LANCET
SiR,-The election of Dr. Robert Hutchison to the presidency of the Royal College of Physicians has given the greatest pleasure to a very wide circle of friends to whom Robert Hutchison has stood for all that is sound in the practice of medicine and all that is good in tradition. We feel that this occasion provides the opportunity of showing our esteem to him personally and acknowledging in some degree his fine contribution to medicine. It is proposed to commemorate the occasion by presenting Dr. Hutchison with his portrait and with this purpose in view we venture to make known the project to old students, friends, and societies in London, Edinburgh, and the provinces. Personal donations should not exceed three guineas. Cheques should be sent to the manager, National Provincial Bank, 10, Marylebone High-street, London, W.1, for the credit of the Robert Hutchison Testimonial Fund. We are, Sir, yours faithfully, LANCELOT BARRINGTON-WARD, ARTHUR MACNALTY, FREDERICK KAY MENZIES, GEORGE NEWMAN, GEORGE RIDDOCH, HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, BERTRAM SHIRES, FREDERICK STILL, G. A. SUTHERLAND, JAMES TAYLOR, JAMES WALTON, DAVID WILKIE.
HUBERT BOND, EDWIN BRAMWELL, DAWSON OF PENN, DUNCAN C. L. FITZWILLIAMS, FRANCIS FRASER, R. S. FREW (Hon. Treas.), WILLIAM GOSCHEN, F. J. MCCANN,
MACMILLAN, July, 1938.
ARTIFICIAL ABORTION FOLLOWING RAPE To the Editor
of THE
LANCET
SiR,-The admirable summary appearing in THE LANCET of July 9th, of the case in which artificial abortion following rape led to police-court proceedings against a valued colleague and friend, prompts me to write to call attention to the mental aspect of the case in question. May I be permitted to restate the case from the psychiatrist’s point of view ? A young girl, under the age of consent, is violently assaulted and raped by a number of adult males. As a result she becomes pregnant, at an age at which both law and medicine believe her to be physiologically immature and unfit to bear a full-time child. The circumstances of the assault in themselves constitute a vividly terrifying experience which might well precipitate mental symptoms. If the pregnancy had been allowed to continue, the young girl would have been submitted to the mental stresses imposed by a compulsory pregnancy with its daily, even hourly, reminders of the assault perpetrated upon her person. After nine months would come the further physiological stress of a difficult labour, giving her a child
abortion for mental reasons, or the uncomfortable that to advise abortion is to advise something I believe that this feeling is partly responsible for the classical " wait and see" attitude of the psychiatrist, who often waits until the patient is too far gone in mental illness for abortion to be therapeutically useful. It should not be beyond the ability of two learned professions to devise a formula to be as important which acknowledges " reason as " life," and which gives legal sanction to practitioners and experts alike to consider the " health " of the mother in a very wide sense. This case raises many interesting points, and I would crave space for one more. As the law stands the quality of the offspring is no concern of the doctors when abortion is under consideration. Accurate eugenic information remains scanty, but it can be accepted as proved that the child of a girl of fifteen years is likely to be weaker, mentally and physically, than the child of an adult woman. This letter is no plea for eugenic abortion, but I do suggest that doctors should be able to use the little knowledge they do possess of mental disease and its inheritance in relation to therapeutic abortion, without the feeling that a free judgment on any given case might involve them in criminal proceedings. I am not qualified to discuss the legal aspect of this particular case, but I do feel that this is one of those instances which the recently abolished Grand Jury would have dealt with successfully by failing to find a True Bill, thus saving much anxiety and distress to all concerned.
feeling illegal.
"
T
n.-m
Cir
’frfn7’’B
f>l.i+.nfnl1v
G. W. B. JAMES. Harley-street, W., July 18th. INFANTICIDE
To the Editor
of
THE LANCET
SiR,-Now that Lord Dawson’s Infanticide Bill has become law, may I call attention to one aspect of the subject to which Lord Dawson made reference in his speech in the House of Lords on April 7th last, and to which you also alluded in your leading article of Jan. 22nd-namely, the medical as apart from the criminal side to these cases ? Lord Dawson reminded us that magistrates already possess the power to remand such cases on bail, pending trial,