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SHOULD WE KILL?
SHOULD WE KILL TO AVERT UNNECESSARY SUFFERING?
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The following article appeared in the columns of the Daily Herald, (London), dated 25th July, 1930, under the heading "Doctors Deny Killing":
Putting wounded out of their Misery "Immoral."
Leaders of the medical profession indignantly denied yesterday the suggestion that doctors sometimes killed, deliberately during the war to avert unnecessary suffering. "Unthinkable," "terrible," "immoral," "impossible," were some of the terms used.
The suggestion was made in a book of reminiscences "Dress of the Day," by a naval surgeon, reviewed in these columns yesterday.
Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, the surgeon, told a Daily Herald representative last night that it was almost impossi. ble to imagine that doctors ever deliberately put an end to
life.
"It would be unjustifiable in any circumstances. Doctors always give the patients under their care every chance," he said.
"Never in my life have I heard of such a case," said Rear-Admiral Falconer Hall, formerly Deputy-Director of the Admiralty Medical Department.
"I was in charge of the hospital ship Sudan in 1915 and 1916, and there was never any doubt that all patients were given equal chances of recovery."
Dr. Noel Scott, author of the play "Traffic" at the Lyceum, said: "I could never be happy unless I knew that I had allowed for the million to one chance.
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"Once during the war another doctor and I operated on a man who we felt would have died in any case in a few
hours.
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