1937-08-18 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1937.

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WEDNESDAY, Auquer 18, 1937.

HOPE AND WORK

FOR PEACE

That the League of Nations is under a cloud and consequently that the cause of world peace is in the gravest peril it would be absurd to deny. Yet there is no reason for defeatism of any kind.

IS IT A RACKET?

UACKERY is ram- in which the blacks and whites pant in Harley of humbug and integrity are Street, we are told; more pronounced or more clearly and half the men

The League of Nations failed in Manchuria, because, who pay the fabulous rent

was taken. It failed in Abys

defined.

By

Dr. Harry Roberts

A

STORM OF CONTROVERSY HAS BEEN RAISED BY CHARGES OF GRAFT AND CORRUPTION IN THE MEDICAL PROFES- SION. DR. HARRY ROBERTS, ONE OF THE BEST-KNOWN GENERAL PRACTITIONERS IN THE COUNTRY, HAS BEEN ASKED TO SAY WHAT HE THOUGHT.

regarded, because the deal is Street; but I doubt if the pro- never likely to come to light.

portion of quackery to intellec- tual integrity is uny greater there than in the consulting- It will be obsroved that the

rooms of suburban practitioners. The truth is that the public specialist surgeon is not the only person involved in this piece of will not take us at our worth; dishonesty. Here is an extract and it has been shrewdly obser- from a letter sent by a young ved that the more educated the Harley Street surgeon to the public, the more gullible it is. "Laneet" two or three years ago.

Though more scientifically in-

Among the instances which he gives is one in which, to quote his own words, "the practitioner teresting, much of the elaborate was above the sordidness of dis equipment of so-called "instru- cussing fees beforehand, but ments of precision" and other after 1 had operated on the gadgets, in the rooms of medical patient sent me a fee of twenty modernists, is just about as were guineas. Not much, I said to my- therapeutically useful as self, but these are hard timus Perkins' celebrated Tractors and for patients as well as doctors. Graham's Celestial Bed in the “A few weeks later the patient Adelphi, and their appeal to the came to see me again about an rich and the cultivated is similar. In at least nine-tenths of all apparent recurrence of symp- toms, and in the course of con- the ailments for which the sick versation I said, quite casually, consult the doctor, emotional or by the way, what did I charge psychic elements loom large. In you for that operation?"

"Sixty guineas,' was the

the treatment of emotional dis- Iress, experience has shown that faith and hope are the most potent drugs.

beyond verbal protest, no action demanded for the putting alleged quackery. I would like to for looking after you before and inspirer of hope," In such cases,

the

that."

As Coleridge said: "He is the best physician who is the best

the patient who has no more confidence in his doctor than that doctor hus in his own ability to cure is likely to fare but ill.

reply.

***Quite,' I said, and then, Let me remember, did that or didn't Before talking about the it include your own doctor's fees

that has after the operation? sinia, because the action that up of a neat brass plate on comment on a word

one of the many doors be- lately been thrown at con- Oh, no, said the patient, was taken both before Italy's!

tween Cavendish Square sultants and specialists, paid a separate account for aggression and during its pro-and Welbeck Street, posing word "graft." gress was in great part insincere

The form of medical corrup- as some kind of specialist,

This surgeon, judging by his

However honest might be his and half-hearted. In the Spanish)

just are

own experience, believed that the guinea-hunting tion generally referred to is crisis, although there is every charlatans, preying on the what is known as fee-splitting habit of fee-splitting is wide. procedure, unsatisfactory would -technically "dichotomy." This spread in England. I doubt it. be the clinical results of a phy- and is the sort of thing. I, let us,

I have been in active practice sician who made it a rule to ex- its functions have been usurped snobbishness of the bour- suppose, a general practioner for over forty years, and have puse all his doubts, his misgiv-

enjoying the full confidence of been a participant in many hun- ings, his anxieties. by the Non-Intervention Com-geois public.

my patient, advise a

certain dreds of consultations with sur- If his patient is to have con- mittee, some of whose mem-

operation, and am asked to sug- geons, physicians and specialists fidence that is therapeutically de- of every kind. I certainly have sirable, he, the doctor, must.as- never had the luck to get a slice sume a self-confidence that he

reason for action by the League under Article 11 of its Covenant, ignorance, credulity

return

understanding.

**

un-

What about medical quackery ? is practised by every successful

This Could Be Done To-morrow

the

bers have never been honest- Is this picture a true one, in gest a surgeon, ly neutral. It is broadly whole or in part? I would true therefore to say that it is answer straight away that it is

not wholly true-nor anything I have one up my sleeves-n of their fee, nor his uny kind of knows to be "scientifically" un- not the League or its machinery like it. At the same time, there young man with a Harley Street a deal ever been suggested to me. justified. That sort of quackery that has failed-but the leading is an unpleasant amount of address with whom I have an nations of Europe who have not truth in the allegations.

He would be If, by quackery, we mean the as- doctor-the most benevolent as lived up to their solemn obliga- I have known men who with glad enough to perform the sumption of knowledge and of well as the most mercenary. It

ability beyond that actually is the motive rather than ΟΙ necessary no operation, tions under the League's Coven- no special training and Fant. Yet that does not lessen special qualifications, having necessary, for fifteen guineas. Possessed, then quackery is part phenomenal aspect of conduct I arrange with my patient of the defensive outfit of almost whereby a man's quality should the fact that, owing to the failed in general practice, have

staked their last few hundred that a fee of forty guinens every doctor-indeed, of almost be judged.

human being-in the Lastly, we must remember betrayals that have occurred, pounds on a room or a share of shall be paid. Quietly, behind every

that medicine is an art still de- faith in the efficacy of the room in the Harley Street the scenes, I and my colleague world.

It is only when this pretence pendent for its success quite as League as an instrument for arca, offering themselves to the divide the surplus spoils.

That this is a criminal offence is employed for the conscious much on tradition, experience, maintaining world peace has public as a throat and nose been sadly shaken. Does that specialist, a skin specialist, or a under the Prevention of Corrup- purpose of defrauding the trust and an instinctive and sympa tion Act, punishable with two ing that we have any right to thetic understanding of human about it. There is nature as on the revelations of mean we must abandon it and psycho-therapeutist.

Some of these men, having years' imprisonment and a fine moralise to the pre-existing business acumen, a

not too of five hundred pounds, is dis- plenty of quackery in Hurley the scientist's laboratory. anarchy, arming ourselves des-scrupulous professional code,,on |perately (and incidentally losing and a big circle of acquaint- much of our freedom) in the tances among practising dog- hope that in the inevitable war tors, have-as the commercial of to-morrow we shall not come others, a little less shrewed and phrase Koes-"made good." out the worst? That at any a little more honest, have failed rale is not the attitude of the even to make the rent. League of Nations Union. The

Numerically, men of this kind recent General Council of the constitute a fairly large pro-

four thousand ( A comparison, of the infant mor-words, a quarter of all our children, Union, realistically facing the portion of the population of the THERE are

Basque children in this coun-tality rates in prosperous and dis-are continuously undernourished to present position in all its black-fashionable medical area; but

possible for them to grow up into For instance, In 1960 renentatively.

and Bath--two pros-healthy citizens. ness, is yet able to send forth a most of the men with the big try who are being well fed and red industrial treas proves this such an extent that it is quite Im-

professional

cared for at the expense of thou-in Oxford

for the Basque reputations-men

mortality

the appeals. clarion call to those who have on the consulting staffs of our sands of British people whose perous towns the Infant

respectively. In that "to keep a Basque child for a the courage to believe in man's great hospitais, for example hearts have been touched by the rate was thirty-one and thirty-five children, we are told, quite truly, essential, common sense and present a very different picture, hardship and suffering endured Sunderland and Wigan-two towns werk costs 10s." The child of an it was ninety-two and ninety-eight during its entire childhood, on 3s. goodwill. At the sober discus-I doubt if there is any district by the non-combatants in a terri-where unemployment was very high unemployed man has to live, often

ble war. sions that took place it was

So strong was the feeling that the per thousand, roughly three times an a week. Ja it any wonder that the

bigh!

diet of so many children is deficient perhaps the figure of Lord bership being allotted to experts to providing farlifties for the Basque thousand babies died from privation

British Government was shemed in-

In those areas, sixty out of every in every respect? Allen of Hurtwood that stood rather than to politicians. Upon children to be brought over here out most prominently. Here in their reports the third stage of

But Spain is not the only question caused by the poverty of their

parents,

But readers will say: "What can on which it in essentint to press the. Some of us, therefore, find It A we do? We cannot raise the money the briefest terms are the broad advance would be entered upon, Government to take action. There little digicult to un erstand how to feed a quarter of Britain's chilt- outlines of the programme he viz. proposals for remedying is another kind of war being waged is that the kindly British people, ren." That is true, but it lit not advocates. First, a summons to those grievances and discussion at home in dire need of help. sufferius of the Spanish non-com- money to feed the children; the

in which the non-combs who are rightly so disturbed by the necessary every Government, whether of their merits. The end would The people in the Distressed Arens batants and

ម there walt- are helping them so food they most need

cannot afford member of the League or not, surely be the establishment of anguting bitter poverty and upem-in and year out, the stark misery of to buy it! An adequate dally ration

have for years been desperately nobly, are prepared to tolerule, yearing for them, but they to attend a World Conference World Organisation fitted to the ployment.

of our own women and of fresh milk is the most pressing

children. at which on a basis of perfect outstanding fact of world unity.

And need of the mothers

It is estimated that twenty-two equality grievances of every❘ It would probably differ litilu in

and a half millon people in Britain A few weeks ago, a little Basque kind against the present world | principle from the existing refugee died as, it was stated, "a Sir John Orr, whose authority on inre living on an income scale of

ale of less result the order may be freely put upon League, but it would be anderwent in the besieged Basque pointed out the other day that there half the population, and includes privation she the subject can hardly be questioned, than £1 a week. That is more than the agenda. The second step League against which it would city" Hundreds of

half the children be- were Ave million people in this considerably more than would be the setting up of fact-be impossible to cast the accusa- longing to the British unemployed country, including twenty-five per children. The average consumption are dying every year de direct ront, of the whole child population, of milk of the whole of this section finding Commissions with re- tion that it stood merely for the suit of the privation they are underlying on a diet that is deficient in of the people is less than a third of “

Blmost every respect. gard to those grievances, mem-status quo,

(Continued on Page 8.) going.

thousand per

BO many

children.

In other

to raise large

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