TWIN DOCTORS’ SUICIDE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 564, 17 January 1929, Page 9

TWIN DOCTORS’ SUICIDE

POVERTY RESULTS FROM CANCER RESEARCH TRAGIC LOSS TO SCIENCE (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) ( Australian end N.Z. Press Association) LONDON, Wednesday. A tragic discovery was made in the West End of London last evening. Two Harley Street medical practitioners, twin brothers, aged 30. Dr. Arthur Brown Smith, radium and concer expert, and Dr. Sidney Smith radium therapeutist. both of whom were graduates of Edinburgh University and joint authors of essays on radium treatment for cancer, were found dead in a service flat in St. James’s, which they took over last week. Both men were lying on the floor with their throats cut. „ A large piece of paper in the room contained a message to the nation. This said: “We are doing this owing to our fear of poverty.” The medical colleagues of the deceased brothers describe them as brilliant radium and cancer 3xperts. who were assured of their future. Their “message to the nation” said that their research work for humanity had reduced them to poverty. Photographs of the twin brothers show their remarkable resemblance to each other. They were tall and dark. Both wore pine nez and dressed and. parted their hair alike. The “Daily Express” says the two brothers attended a party given by a specialist on Saturday evening. They arrived early and seemed to be distraught. They said they wanted to confer privately on an important matter, and used the telephone. QUEER CONDUCT Subsequently one of the doctors said a treatise he and his brother had published in the “Medical Journal” had produced curious political results. \ “Oh, nonsense,” said the host. An awkward silence followed. The brothers again conferred, and finally asked permission to slip away quietly. They departed after their host, fearing that their minds were unhinged, had made a final attempt to pierce the mystery. On Monday the brothers assisted at an operation in a poor hospital. The distinguished surgeon who operated said they took to the hospital (which had no radium) their own private supply, worth £2,000. They made no charge for its use. They left the hospital in the evening, after promising to assist at another operation on Wednesday. He felt certain that no idea of death had then entered their minds.