DOCTORS SUED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 863, 6 January 1930, Page 13

DOCTORS SUED

GIRL’S WRIT AT LEAGUE UNWANTED LOVE STORY The equanimity of the League of Nations was disturbed last month by a writ in an action for wrongful detention launched by the parents of Mile. Peganov, an attractive Russian girl, formerly employed in the secretariat, against the League’s consulting physician and a mental expert. The girl’s parents allege that two years ago she had to complain of the persistent attentions of her chiefs, but no notice was taken of her protests. One day, they declare, she was summoned to the house of the League’s doctor, where a mental specialist was also in attendance. There, she alleges, she was threatened with expulsion from Geneva within 24 hours unless she signed the document admitting that the charges against her superior were untrue. She eventually signed another paper, which she says was snatched from her hand before she had time to read it, but in which apparently she agreed- to enter a convalescent home at Mont Pelerin. Instead of being taken to Mont Pelerin, she alleges that she was interned in an asylum near Vevey. Mile. Peganov declares that she escaped, and returned to Geneva. Although the two doctors in question had, it is said, certified that she was suffering from erotic delirium and persecution mania, she was given another post in the secretariat, but was discharged in August because she still “refused to withdraw her accusation.” It is also alleged that she was threatened with expulsion from the country. Mile. Peganov’s charges are strongly resented by officials of the secretariat, who say that exceptional solicitude was shown her after five doctors had certified that she was not responsible for her actions. Several chiefs of sections under whom she worked at different times declare that she made their lives a misery by her behaviour. One handsome young Italian, who has since left Geneva, complained that she used to ring the bell at his flat every day, and declare her passion for him, while another was threatened with a revolver. A third asked for police protection after, he said, being molested on coming out of church, while a number of other prominent officials allege that she threatened them with “exposure.”