the summer session of the general medical council

1750 THE SUMMER SESSION OF THE GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL.

or a play needs no explanation. We, who know the value ofmedical charities and their sore need of support, marvel atwhat we are too ready to think is the callousness of thosewho appear to demand amusement for themselves before theywill contribute to the funds of the .hospitals. The public isnot callous but rather uninstructed. If it were possible tomake the needs of charity as clear to a thoughtless worldas are the delights of a dance it is certain that many would

cheerfully give their money without asking for discount inthe shape of entertainment. But as it is not possible,wise people view with equanimity the accepted methods of

extracting subscriptions and are grateful to the leaders ofsociety for their labours on behalf of the sick poor.

The Summer Session of theGeneral Medical Council.

THE summer session of the General Medical Council was

a singularly uneventful one. The most important debateranged round the unfortunately strained relations betweenthe Council and the two great English medical corporations,and upon this subject we have already expressed our views.The rest of the session was largely taken up by the hearingof penal cases. These cases, as Sir WILLIAM TURNER fore-

shadowed in his opening address that they would be, were

unusually numerous and in many of them the characters ofthe medical men in question were seriously involved. As a

consequence the profession awaited with interest the

methods of the General Medical Council in dealing with

them, and the verdict of acquittal that most of those

implicated secured, either with or without modification,has not been hailed as quite satisfactory. Let us not be

understood as arguing that any particular accused medicalman has been able to retain his place on the Registerwhen he should have been removed from it ; to make

such a suggestion would be grossly unfair to all parties.For this reason we are unable to publish the communicationsthat we have received, or to do more than to quote generallythe impression that we know to have been created ; but it isuseless to disguise the fact that the sterile result of the

work of the Council as a penal body has given rise

to much adverse comment. Last week a correspondent,noting that certain charges of infamous conduct in a pro- ifessional respect" had been dismissed by the Council

as non-proven, called attention to the stigma that

has been affixed upon innocent people, and undoubtedlythis is a point of view worthy of consideration ; but it is

merely a side-result of the circumstances. No chargesare heard by the General Medical Council or preferredby either of the medical defence associations without

deliberation ; anonymous accusations are not attended

to. We have every sympathy with those gentlemenagainst whom charges are brought without being sus-

tained, but we cannot subscribe to the view that

such charges are, as a rule, made in a spirit either of

vindictiveness or hasty irresponsibility. The large propor-tion of non-proven verdicts that are found by the GeneralMedical Council in the penal cases that come before it

is due to the determination of the Council to convict onlyupon the most incontrovertible evidence. The members of

the Council do not form a legal tribunal, they are at a dis

advantage compared with a law court in taking evidence,and they possess bat one punishment for all professionalsins. The most shameful breach of honour or moralityand the most trivial and accidental lapse from the code of

professional ethics must, if punished, be punished alike byerasure from the Medical Register. The Council rightlydeclines to exercise its tremendous power save upon the

clearest grounds, for it recognises that removal from the

professional roll means the ruin of the sentenced man.

Strong suspicion of a practitioner’s methods may lead to a

perfectly legitimate accusation of him before the GeneralMedical Council and yet the Council may be right in,

acquitting him. The number of non-proven verdicts does

not connote in our minds any supineness on the part of theGeneral Medical Council; it only serves to remind us howunfortunate it is that the Medical Acts supply the Councilwith such clumsy machinery with which to arrange a penalcode. It is to be hoped that the short Bill now before-

Parliament, which provides for temporary removal from theRegister of the names of offenders, will soon become law

so that the Council may be able to attempt in some degreeto fit the punishment to the offence.

The Trinidad Epidemic.OUR readers will doubtless recall that some weeks ago 1

we directed attention to the singular conflict of opinionthat had arisen between the medical authorities of Trinidad

and Barbados respecting the outbreak in the former islandof an epidemic eruptive disorder which bore very markedresemblance to the outbreak of small-pox from which

Barbados has recently suffered, at great loss to her tradein consequence of quarantine restrictions. It will be re-

membered that llr. J. F. E. BRIDGER, who was familiar withthe character of the Barbados disorder, had been sent to

report on that of Trinidad and that the tenour of his reportwas to the effect that undoubtedly Trinidad was the seat of

small-pox, which was spreading through this land mainlybecause its true nature was being disregarded and patientswere being allowed to go about while still in an infectivestate. The profession in Trinidad had expressed its dis-

sent from Mr. BRIDGER’S conclusions and appeared to regardthe disease as something new, being largely influenced by themildness of its type. We endeavoured to reconcile these con-

flicting opinions and pointed out that for the last few yearsa similar mild eruptive varioloid disease had been extendingover Canada and the United States, and we considered thatfrom the epidemiological standpoint it was highly probablethat the disease, whatever it might be called, was the samein all these places. We even ventured to think that in view

of the grave interests involved it might be well if an autho-

ritative opinion by experts could be obtained by personalinvestigation of the Trinidad cases.

It is with a sense of relief which will be shared by all

nosologists, that we are now enabled to record a distinct

change in the views of the Trinidad authorities. We have

before us a copy of a leaflet issued by the medical officer of

health, headed I The Prevailing Epidemic : How to Prevent

1 THE LANCET, April 18th (p. 1121) and May 2nd (p. 1248), 1903.