DIFFERENT THEN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 98, 31 August 1942, Page 5

DIFFERENT THEN

GANDHI'S CHANGE OF FACE

HOSPITALS CRITICISED

Once upon a time it chanced that Mr Gandhi, having widely and publicly announced that "hospitals are institutions for propagating sin"; that "European doctors are the worst of all" and that "quacks whom we know are better than the doctors who* put on an air of humaneness," himself fell suddenly ill of a pain in the Side. As he happened to be in prison at the time, a British surgeon of the Indian Medical Service came straight, away to see him. "Mr Gandhi," said the surgeon, "I am sorry to tell you that you have appendicitis. If you were my patient I should operate 1 at once. But you will probably prefer to call in your Hindu physician." The j>atient. proved otherwiseminded, "I should prefer not to operate/' pursued the surgeon, "because in case the outcome should be unfortunate, all your friends will lay it as a charge of malicious intent against Us whose duty it is to care for you." "If you will only consent to operate," pleaded Mr Gandhi, "I will call in my friends, now, and explain to them that you do so at my request" So Mr Gandhi wilfully went, to an " institution for propagating sin," was operated upon by one of the "worst of all," an officer of the Indian Medical Service, and was attentively nursed through convalescence by an English sister, whom he is understood to have thought, after all, rather a useful sort of person.