THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND THE
PUBLIC • -
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sim,—The interest the public take in the case of Dr. Axham is sufficient excuse for drawing attention to .the fact: that he was not convicted, as stated, by the G.M.C., of infamous pro- fessional conduct, but of infamous conduct in a professional respect. The G.M.C. has nothing to do with the former and everything with the latter. The function of the Council is to guard the State while the Law protects the individual. In- famous professional conduct, as, for example, in the case of the induction of abortion in a natural, healthy woman, is a criminal offence punishable by Law, or as in the case of personal damage, resulting from treatment, an injury reparable in the County Court. But infamous conduct in a professional
respect is not such, but only an offence under the Medical Act of 1858, which the G.M.C. administers. Dr. Axham's offence consisted in giving assistance to an uneducated man, that is, uneducated in a medical sense, for the cure of patients, which he did at the request of Sir Herbert Barker. Had Dr. Axham asked Sir Herbert Barker to assist him in, for example, mani- pulating a knee he thought would be benefited thereby, the G.M.C. would not be concerned. The G.M.C. in the actionl it took in regard to Dr. Axham fulfilled its functions in one direction. Patients of the State, the poor or those in the' services can only be treated by men educated in medicine and technically trained in its various branches ; the public would not have tolerated any other system and rightly too. No one could suggest that §ir Herbert Barker is such a person.' The G.M.C. has learnt much and much more there is in store to learn ; but it is not a bOdy for initiating new plans to meet new developments, rather a body for carrying out the pro- visions of the original Act and its subsequent amendments.' The G.M.C. cannot, so it appears to me, restore a name erased from the Medical Register, except, perhaps, if the person convicted requalifies by taking other and equivalent degrees to those he possessed at the time of committing the offence.—
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