AN EXPLANATION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2468, 22 May 1915, Page 13

AN EXPLANATION.

. Sir,—Some weeks ago there appeared m .your columns the report of a prosecution directed against myself by the Mental Hospitals Department, in which your reporter, not being versed in professional intricaoies, missed the point of the accusation, and conveyed an erroneous impression unjust to myself. Consequently upon the misapprehension spread among the public by the report, I have sinoe been annoyed by remarks and inquiries from various quarters in reference to it, and therefore I request you of your courtesy to give equal publicity to my explanation. The patient in question was sent to me by the medical practitioner who had been attending her in the town where she resided as a case of neurasthenia, and about ten days she developed pronounced mental symptoms. At once I obtained the written consent of liei only responsible relative, and took tho proper legal steps (viz.. notification to a. Magistrate i and application for the usual medical examination) preliminary to committal, to a mental hospital. The only fault charged against me was the purely technical one of having omitted to Bend at the same time a written notification to the office of the Department —to which I pleaded guilty, although it was committed in ignorance of the regulation. On similar occasions previously I had inadvertently _ made the same omission, and no notice had been taken of it by the Department; and in any case it was a trifling irregularity which needed only my atten-, tion called to it to have elicited from me an apology for the foult, and careful observance of the regulation for the future. ■ Thanking you in anticipation. —I am, etc., DR. EDITH A. HUNTLEY, Medical Direotor of the Lahman Health Home.