4 AUGUST 1939, Page 22

THE B.M.A. AND MIDWIVES

SIR,—I think it is very regrettable that so much publicity has been given to the recent decision of the British Medical Asso- ciation, objecting to midwives carrying out the humanitarian act of relieving pain in childbirth, by the perfectly harmless administration of nitrous oxide.

It is not generally realised by the public that the B.M.A. is simply a private society of doctors and dentists, to which only a limited number of members of the professions belong, and has no statutory powers whatever either to control the medical profession, or tp speak in the name of doctors as a whole. Fortunately the ancient ideals of the medical profession are not yet dead, and it is my experience that the vast majority of medical practitioners still place the welfare of the sick first, and their own interests last.—Yours faithfully,

H. TUDOR EDMUNDS.

Sussex Place, Slough.