dLorrtspoitdencc. THE UTILIZATION OF CONDEMNED

CRIMINALS

FOR CHOLERA EXPERIMENTS."

To

the

Editor

of the

Indian Medical

Gazette.

Sir.?In reference to the Editorial article on the above subject, appearing in your current issue, attributing to Mr. Cornish, Surgeon-General of the Madras Medical Service, the credit of the priority of the above suggestion, I would beg to note that the idea is not a novel one, and was put forth some years since by a German savant in the Berliner Klinisclie Wochenschrift, and I at the time reiterated it. A?-ain, not very long since, when the Cholera Commis-

sion

was

in this

country,

I

urged the subject

to notice in one

APPOINTMENTS,

Oct., 1885.]

of your medical contemporaries in. London. Mr. Thomas Blaney, and others, of Bombay, have also recommended the experiment in the columns of a Bombay daily. I am,

September 22nd. [We were aware

that the

yours truly, JOHN LUCAS, H. D.

sir,

idea of

utilizing

condemned

criminals for cholera experiments is not of recent origin, the

subject having been formally proposed to the Governby one of its sanitary officials, about twelve years ago. What we credited Surgeon-General Cornish with, was his able advocacy of the measure, and the practical shape' which he gave it by indicating more fully than had hitherto been done, conditions calculated to render the experiments unobjectionable from an humanitarian point of view, and the results of the experiments acceptable to Western nations.?Ed. I. M. G.] ment of India

'

&c.

337