[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—No one pretends, least
of all Sir Herbert Barker himself, that he has had an orthodox general training in medicine and surgery. But anyone who knows anything of his career and record must acknowledge that he is educated to a superlative *degree in his own sphere of work, and that he is, as the Times once described him in a leading article, December 17th, 1912, " a master of manipulative surgery who relieves suffering for which no relief can be found elsewhere."
A famous surgeon--a past-President of the British Medical Association—once nobly wrote of Sir Herbert Barker that " his methods had been discovered by assiduous practice, by patient investigation, and by unremitting study," and that it was, " by that means that he had won his way." He went on to say that Sir Herbert Barker's " present reputation has been won by actual achievements in the face of cruel and ceaseless opposition, and by a series of successes maintained through two decades in cases where the ablest surgeons working on orthodox lines have failed."
You, Sir, gripped the kernel of the whole situation when you wrote in your leader, " Finally, we suggest that Dr. Axham ought to be restored to the Register . . . no sensible person will misunderstand the reasons for clemency. ' We must stick to rules ; it is quite impossible to distinguish,' is not a motto for intelligent men. It is the function of intelli- gent men to distinguish." Dr. Axham by the infraction of a single rule, said to be formulated for the protection of the public, has done humanity an incalculable service, and ad- vanced a section of surgery which it is now generally admitted is of the greatest scientific value.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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