CRITICISM IN BOOKS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 214, 10 August 1937, Page 8

CRITICISM IN BOOKS.

ALLEGATIONS OF FAKING. “Guinea-chasing, fee-splitting, backscratching, cynical and heartless exploitation of rich hypochrondriacs,” is portion of the theme of a novel “Citadel,” by Dr. A. J. Cronin. The author, who was born in 1890, graduated in medicine in 1919, but, after 12 years’ practice in the West End of London, gave up his practice and devoted him : self to literature. He makes his hero exclaim of the West End: “There are too many jackals in this square mile giving' unnecessary injections, whipping out tonsils and appendixes which are doing no harm, playing ball amongst each other with patients, and backing up pseudo-scientific remedies.” A fashionable physician boasts to the hero of giving three-guinea injections of sterile water, and adds; “Why not? It all boils down to faith in a bottle of coloured water.” Then there is a surgeon who botches a very simple operation and says, inspecting the end of his cigarette: “Of course, he didn’t die on the tabic. I had finished before that. There is no necessity for an inquest. “MUD-SLINGING.” Professor R. J. Johnstone, president of the British Medical Association, commenting on the book, says that if the charge made in it is not fantasy it is just mud-slinging, and is best ignored, because nothing can be done about it. Dr. N. Bishop Harman, treasurer of the 8.M.A., says that the book is wildly exaggerated. For the writer to talk of specialists using hypodermic syringes and acting mysteriously was ridichlous.

Dr. Cronin, in roply, said that the story, though not based on personal experiences, was founded on facts. The incidents described were happening every day, forming an insidious, hidden evil which tended to spread just because it was hidden. “If anything, I have withheld a little not to appear too sensational,” he added. “The book is as true as it could be. I felt it was time the truth was written.” “Modern doctoring has become too expensive for many people,” writes Lord Horder, the King’s Physician, in a new work published by Dents. Ho says the public seeks salvation in tho specialist and expert. The more apparatus and the more complicated methods these employ, the greater is the public’s confidence.