BOGUS DOCTOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 301, 13 May 1913, Page 7

BOGUS DOCTOR.

KFA'TFATED FOR IMPOSTURE. ISSUED DEATH CERTIFICATES. London, May. 1. Sentence of nine months' imprisonment in the sicond division was passed at the Old Bailey on llenvy Virtue, aged 45, who had posed and practised as a doctor, tie gained considerable notoriety by jumping out of a train when being brought lo London in custody, and, when recaptured, by stimulating madness and dumbness. Virtue, who is the son of a brass finisher at .Manchester, pleaded guilty to a number of indictments for feloniously giving false death certificates, and for procuring himself to be falsely registered in the Medical Register as a registered medical practitioner. Mr. Bodkin said that in 1888 a gentleman named Richard Henry Barber gained ..ie medical qualification* of L.R.C.P. and L.R.C.S., Edinburgh, and L.F.P.S., Glasgow. In 18IKJ he went to practise at Portland, Oregon, and in 1004 he was accidentally drowned. His death was not known by the General Medical Council, and in 1000 a request was received that Dr. Barber's address in the register should be clcinged from Portland to Liverpool. This was signed "Richard Henry Barber," and was now proved to ! be in prisoner's writing. In 1012 lie was practising at Treeton, near Rotherham, as Dr. Barber, when suspicions arose concerning him. In ,conseqeuuee of this a letter was written to him by the officials of the Medical Council, and he at once<disappcared. The next thing beard of him was that, J in the name of Dr. Thompson, he was in negotiation for the post of surgeon on board a liner. Meanwhile, enquiries were being made, and the wife of the real Dr. Barber, herself a doctor, came over from Oregon and proved her husband's death. The name of Barber was struck off the register, and a warrant was issued for the prisoner's arrest. He was taken at Liverpool when making preparations to sail on a liner as doctor, and Chief Inspector Fowler and another officer conducted him to the train for London. When near Cheddington, in Buckinghamshire, he slipped his hand through the carriage window, turned the door handle, and, while the train was going at sixty miles an hour, was about to drop on the line. The officers seized him, and a desperate struggle ensued. At last he got so far. that he was hanging by his collar, and eventually that gave way and he dropped. The train was pulled up by a signalman who had witnessed the incident, and thought a murder was being committed. The accused was eventually re-arrested and brought to London. He at once began one of the most remarkable bits of malingering. He shammed insanity, and was confined in Banstead Lunatic Asylum for two months, until he was examined by an eminent specialist, who discovered the fraud. He was brought up at Bow-street Police Court, and hp , then feigned to have lost his voice, and would not utter a sound, but it came back to him after he had been remanded for a week. It was discovered that he was born at ' Openshaw, near Manchester, in 18C5, and that after working as a grocer and a butcher he went first to Canada and then to the United States. He studied veterinary surgery at Chicago, and had some sort of certificates, and he served in the Royal Horse Artillery for a few months. Judge Luraley Smith asked if the people who were certified did actually die. Mr. Bodkin said the people did die, but whetheo of the diseases specified in the certificate lie could not say. In 1004, continued counsel, the accused obtained an appointment as assistant to Mr. Kirk, a London veterinary surgeon, bv representing himself as another man. There was evidence that afterwards he performed surgical operations on people. Chief Inspector Fowler said that some poison was found secreted on Virtue when he was arrested. The fight in the train was a verv desperate affair. Mr. Ceorge Elliott, K.C., for the defence, said tjie accused acted as locum tenens to ten or eleven professional gentlemen, and it was a. testimony to his ability that in four instances he was reengaged. There were forty testimonials from patients at Treeton and elsewhere expressing the greatest gratitude for the relief he had afforded them. He studied medicine at Boston University and other places, and became M.D. of Chicago and Wisconsin, besides obtaining a diploma in Peru. Therefore it was not right to speak of him as a man without experience or qualification. He was on friendly terms with the real Dr. Barber, and when the latter was drowned the temptation to adopt his name and come to England was opened to him'.