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7 Medico-Legal & Criminological Rev. 1 (1939)

handle is hein.journals/medlgjr7 and id is 1 raw text is: THE MEDICO-LEGAL AND CRIMINOLOGICAL REVIEW Vol. VII. January, 1939 No. i COMMON GROUND Under this heading the Editors comment on matters of interest to both professions. SHOULD A DOCTOR TELL ? THE question whether a doctor who has attended a woman dying as a result of a criminal abortion shall communicate with the police the information she has given him in professional confidence is an old and familiar one. In December, 1914, Mr. Justice Avory, charging the grand jury in a case against an abortionist, said that when a woman was likely to die and her evidence likely to be lost, it was the doctor's duty to communicate with the police, and that his desire to preserve professional confidence must be subordinated to the duty which rests upon every good citizen to assist in the investigation of a serious crime. This dictum is constantly quoted, and the organized medical profession profoundly disagree with it. It has never ac- quired the force of law, and no attempt has ever been made-so far as we know-to suggest in court that it has. The controversy was revived in the court of Mr. Ingleby Oddie, the Paddington coroner, on November 7.* His inquest on a woman who died from blood poisoning following abortion showed that a medical practitioner had been called to the woman, that she had told him she had had an illegal abortion, and that he had sent her to hospital. He asked a solicitor if he should report to the police what she had said, and the solicitor told him it was not his duty to do so. The coroner did not blame the doctor for his action, although, as he said, if the doctor had warned the authorities that a felony had been committed, a valuable dying declaration might have been taken. He expressed * The Times, November 8, 1938. VOL. VII. I I