Which Doctor?
SIR,—In your issue for December 23, John Rowan Wilson, in his article on general practitioners, warns against 'the so-called "clever" doctor,' who, according to Mr Wilson, 'is usu..ily from Central Europe.' From the ensuing description it is clear that Mr Wilson is here using the adjective 'clever' to describe doctors whose type of practice borders on quackery.
No doubt there are in this country doctors from Central Europe who practise this kind of medicine, but such practice is not unknown in men coming from medical schools of North-West Europe. Generalisations of this type, based on an appeal to emotion rather than reason and betraying a singularly insular outlook, are to be deplored, especially in this instance when it is recalled that many of the 'Central European' doctors practising in this country came here originally as refugees from their own countries. Such an illiberal and hurtful form of 'guilt by association' cannot be allowed to pass without protest.
[John Rowan Wilson writes: I would like to assure Professor Le Quesne that my article on GPs carried no racial implications whatever. Perhaps I had better say in advance that my remarks about surgeons in this week's issue are equally free of personal prejudice.)
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