THE DOCTORS.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 607, 30 May 1876, Page 2

THE DOCTORS.

To the Editor of the Globe. Sir, —In reference to the leading article in your issue of the 27th instant, touching on the case of Mr Townend, permit me (as a neutral party, having nothing whatever to do with the profession), to offer a word of comment for the benefit of the public. I will be as brief as passible. From the tenor of your remarks you seem to be unpleased with the doctors of Christchurch for joining themselves together in solemn league and covenant against any others of the profession that will work for a lower wage. Whether this conventional action is right or wrong I don't know, but this much I do know—viz, that by doing that they are only doing what every trade and profession in the world does, and which is done to main* tain their dignity. Having finished the first paragraph, I will begin the second by telling you that there is a vast difference between a bona fide doctor of medicine and a real qualified tailor or bootmaker. If the latter spoil a coat or a pair of boots through carelessness or ignorance, they have access to fresh material to carry out their design; but not so in the case of the former. If he is careless or deficient in the science, and particularly in the critical art of midwifery, where life and death is at stake, his carelessness or ignorance will result in irreparable loss, a loss that any father or mother would pay any amount to recover. At any rate, co-opera-tion or non-co-operation, in cases of midwifery, which is a very critical part of the profession, I think it would be best for the public to pay the fee of a qualified man, however high it may be, than to run the risk of |losing their offspring by hiring the service of a quack. And now to the point in which I would more immediately draw your attention. You seem to think that Mr Townend was intimidated on account of his not being recognised by the medical profession of Christchurch, and a good right he had to be so, as he had got no diploma, and from a statement he made at the coroner's inquest the public might almost rely that he was not the right man in the right place even if he had one. To sum up in a word, I think E»r Townend is greatly to blame for keeping a non-quali-fied man as an assistant. I hope I have not encroached on your valuable space. Yours, &c, JAMES ROSS. Christchurch, 29th May, 1876. [ln the article quoted by our correspondent we made no comments upon the case of Mr Townend, nor would any public journal allude to an undecided case, but when rumours are that a douceur of i£4ooo mignt have been taken by Dr Townend to search for another field for practice, we think we are fully justified in saying that there is a touch of Trades Unionism amongst the doctors of this city. —Ed. Globe. "]