1937-08-18 — Page 6

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1937.

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WEDNESDAY, August 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:

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

no reason for defeatism of any kind. The League of Nations failed in Manchuria, because, who pay the fabulous rent

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- portion of quackery to intellec- never likely to come to light.

tusi integrity is any greater rooms of suburban practitioners.

++

It will be obsreved that the there than in the consulting- specialist surgeon is not the only The truth is that the public 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. "Lancet" two or three years ago.

Among the instances which he gives is one in which, to quote

Though more scientifically in-

were

his own words, "the practitioner teresting, much of the claborate was above the sordidness of dis- equipment of so-called "instru- cussing fees beforehand, but ments of precision" and other after I had operated on the gadgets, in the rooms of medical patient sent me a fee of twenty modernists, is just about as guineas. Not much, I said to my- therapeutically useful as self, but these are hard times 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 the treatment of emotional dis- by the way, what did I charge psychic elements loom large. In tress, experience has shown that you for that operation?

faith and hope are the most potent drugs.

the

"Sixty guineas,' was reply.

'"'Quite,' I said, and then, 'Let me remember, did that or didn't

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,

crisis, although there is every

comment on a word

*

that.""

However honest might be his

As Coleridge said: "He is the Before talking about the it include your own doctor's fees best physician who is the best the patient who has no more was taken. It failed in Abys-)

that has after the operation?'

confidence in his doctor than sinia, because the action that up of a neat brass plate on

been thrown nt con- Oh, no,' said the patient, I that doctor has in his own ability was taken both before Italy's one of the many doors be- Intely

tween Cavendish Square sultants and specialists, the paid a separate account for to cure is likely to fare but ill. aggression and during its pro-and Welbeck Street, posing word "graft." gress was in great part insincere

The form of medical corrup- This surgeon, judging by his as some kind of specialist, and half-hearted. In the Spanish

own experience, believed that the are just guinea-hunting tion generally referred to is charlatans, preying on the what is known as fee-splitting habit of fee-splitting is wide- procedure, unsatisfactory would

-technically "dichotomy." This reason for action by the League

ignorance, credulity and is the sort of thing. I, let us, spread in England. I doubt it. be the clinical results of a phy I have been in active practice sician' who made it a rule to ex- under Article 11 of its Covenant, its functions have been usurped snobbishness of the bour- suppose, a general practioner for over forty years, and have pose all his doubts, his misgiv-

enjoying the full confidence of been a participant in many hun- ings, his anxieties.

If his patient is to have con- by the Non-Intervention Com-geois public.

my patient, advise a certain dreds of consultations with sur- mittee, some of whose mem-

operation, and am asked to sug- geons, physicians and specialists idence that is therapeutically de- Is this picture a true one, in gest a surgeon.

of every kind. bers have never been honest-

I certainly have sirable, he, the doctor, must as- I would ly

never had the luck to get a slice sume a self-confidence that he neutral,

brondly whole or in part? IL is true therefore to say that it is answer straight away that it is

I have one up my sleeves-n of their fee, nor has any kind of knows to be "scientifically" un- not the League or its machinery not wholly true-nor anything

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 What about medical quackery? is practised by every successful that has failed-but the leading is an

of address with whom I have an unpleasant amount

understanding. He would be If, by quackery, we mean the as- doctor-the most benevolent as nations of Europe who have not truth in the allegations. 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 un- ability beyond that actually is the motive rather than the special training and no operation, necessary

qualifications, having necessary, for fifteen guineas. possessed, then quackery is part phenomenal aspect of conduct

with I arrange

my patient of the defensive outfit of almost whereby a man's. quality should Yet that does not lessen, special

remember we must Lastly, the being-in the fact that, owing to the failed in general practice, have

that medicine is an art still de- betrayals that have occurred, staked their last few hundred that a fee of forty guinens every doctor-indeed, of almost be judged.

pounds on a room or a share of shall be paid. Quietly, behind every 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 aren, offering themselves to the divide the surplus spoils.

a throat and nose That this is a criminal offence is employed for the conscious much on tradition, experience, maintaining world peace has public ns 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 mean we must abandon it and psycho-therapeutist.

Some of these men, having years' imprisonment and a fine moralise about it. There is nature as on the revelations of return to the pre-existing

business acumen, 11 not too of five hundred pounds, is dis- plenty of quackery in Harley the scientist's laboratory. anarchy, arming.ourselves des- scrupulous professional code,, perately (and incidentally losing and a big circle of acquaint- much of our freedom) in the tances among practising doe- hope that in the inevitable war tors, have-as the commerciul

phrase goes-"made

good." of to-morrow we shall not come

Others, a little less shrewed and out the worst? That at any a little more honest, have failed | rate is not the attitude of the even to make the rent. League of Nations Union. The recent General Council of the constitute a fairly large pro-

tions under the League's Coven-no

ant.

essential common xenxe

Numerically, men of this kind

ble war.

or

human

This Could

Be

Done To-morrow

four

press the

per

to

Basque

A comparison of the infant mor- words, a quarter of all our children, thousand

tality rates in prosperous and dis-are continuously undernourished Union, realistically facing the portion of the population of the THERE are

Basque children in this coun- tressed industrial areas proves this such an extent that it is quite im present position in all its black-fashionable medical area; but

and Balhitwo pros-healthy citizens.

In the appeals for the ness, is yet able to send forth a most of the men with the big try who are being well fed and conclusively. For instance, in 19 possible for them to grow up into

professional reputations-men eared for at the expense of thou- in Oxford

respectively. thousand clarion call to those who have on the consulting staffs of vuri sands of British people whose perous towns--the Infant mortality |

In that "to keep a Basque child for a the courage to believe in man's great hospitals, for example-hearts have been touched by the rate was thirty-one and thirty-five children, we are told, quite truly, and present a very different picture. hardship and suffering endured Sunderland and Wigan-two towns week costs 10s." The child of an It was ninety-two and ninety-eight during its entire childhood, on 35. 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 mun has to live, often per thousand, roughly three times as a week. Is it any wonder that the diet of so many children is deficient sions that took place it was

So strong was the feeling that the high!

In those areas, sixty out of every in every respect? British Government was shamed in- perhaps the figure of Lord bership being allotted to experts to providing facilities for the Basque thousand babies died from privation Allen of Hurtwood that stood rather than to politicfans. Upon children to be brought over here

But readers will say: "What can parents. out most prominently. Here in their reports the third stage of

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

we do? We cannot raise the money 10 on which it is essential

Some of us, therefore, find it n

quarter of Britain's child- the briefest terms are the broad advance would be entered upon, Government to take action. There httle dimcult to understand how it to feed

It is not people, ren." That is true, but

to raise arge sume of outlines of the programme he viz. proposals for remedying is another kind of war being waged is that the kindly British

at home in which the non-comba- who are rightly so disturbed by the

to feed the children; advocates. First, a summons to those grievances and discussion tants are also in dire need of help. suffering of the Spanish non-com-money

ure helping them to food they most need is there wait- every Government, whether of their merits. The end would The people in the Distressed Arcas batants and member of the League or not, surely be the establishment of a fighting bitter

have for years been desperately nobly, are prepared to tolerate, year ing for them, but they commot offord paverly, and unem-in and year out, the stark misery of to buy it! An adequate daily rallon and of fresh milk is the most pressing to many of our own women to attend a World Conference World Organisation fitted to the ployment.

need of the mothers and children. children.

twenty-two at which on a basis of perfect outstanding fact of world unity.

It is estimated that and a half million people in

Britain equality grievances of every It would probably differ little In

A few weeks ago, a tlie Basque

of Icza Sir John Orr, whose authority on jare lying on an income scale of kind against the present world principle from the existing refugee cled as, it was sinted, ""

direct result of the privation she the subject can hardly be questioned, than £1 a week. That is more than population, and includes order may be freely put upon League, but it would be

underwent in the besitged Basque pointed out the other day that there half the

in this considerably more then half the millan people be- were five the agenda. The second step League against which it would city." Hundreds of children

per children. The average consumption longing to the Briksh unemployed country, including twenty-five would be the setting up of fact-be impossible to cast the accusn- are dying overy year as a direct ro-ent. of the whole child population, of milk of the whole of this section finding Commissions with re- tion that it stood merely for the gult of the privation they are under-living on a diet that is deficient in of the people is less than a third of

almost every respect. In

(Continued on Page 5.) going. gard to those grievances, mem-status quo.

**

other

necessary

the