1025

SPECIAL ARTICLES

MEDICINE AND THE LAW

Drunkenness as Defence to Charge of ArsonAT Leeds assizes last week, when a man was being

tried for setting fire to the furniture in his house, adefence of drunkenness for once succeeded. He

pleaded that he was so " mad drunk " at the timeas not to know the nature of his act. He had, he said,ordinarily been a total abstainer, but domesticirritations had caused him to break out. Mr. Justice

Finlay gave the jury a characteristically careful andaccurate explanation of the law and the accused wasacquitted.Normally, as is well known, voluntary drunkenness

is no defence. The drinker, in Coke’s quaint phrase,is voluntarius dcemon he has no privilege by thesurrender of his self-control ; "what ill soever hedoeth, his drunkenness doth aggravate it." Thereare, however, two aspects of intoxication of whichthe law takes a less unsympathetic notice. First,though drunkenness (like anger) is not an excuse forcrime, it may sometimes affect the degree of guiltwhere a particular intention is essential to the com-mission of the crime. Just as circumstances of

provocation may reduce murder to the lesser offenceof manslaughter, so drunkenness may be taken intoaccount in considering whether the accused formed aparticular intent. Secondly, drunkenness, if itproduces insanity, may be a successful defence, as therecent Leeds case shows. Here it will not be enoughto show that the man’s mind was affected by drinkso that he more readily gave way to some violentpassion ; this will not rebut the ordinary presumptionthat everyone intends the natural consequences ofhis acts. To be a successful defence the drunkennessmust be of such a degree as to cause incapacity offorming an intention to commit the particular crime.The locus classicus for the law is the decision of theCourt of Criminal Appeal in Beard’s case in 1920.There the accused had criminally assaulted a 13-year-old girl ; in furtherance of the rape he placed hishand on her mouth and his thumb on her windpipe,thereby suffocating her. He was held guilty ofmurder in the absence of evidence of such a state ofdrunkenness as would negative the intent to committhe rape. The doctrine of criminal responsibilityin relation to alcohol, it may be added, would apply.equally if for alcoholic intoxication there were

substituted mental or bodily conditions due to narcoticor stimulant drugs or their hypodermic injection.

Aplastic Anaemia : Inquest on Cellulose SprayerAn inquest was held at Battersea last week upon

the death of Charles Ingold, a cellulose sprayer’smate, aged 19, who was found to have died of aplasticanaemia. His mother said he was brought home fromwork on the Thursday before Easter with .a

temperature of 103°; there were mauve patches underhis skin. He was taken to the St. James Hospital,Balham, and his two brothers gave blood trans-

fusions, but he died on Easter Sunday. Dr. W. L.MacCormac, medical officer at the hospital, explainedthe effects of the disease at the inquest. On admissionthe young man’s blood was found to have turnedalmost to water. Two days before death specimensof his blood showed onlv 100 white blood-cells as

compared with the normal 6000. Ingold’s employers,for whom he had worked since November, were

represented at the inquest. Allusion was made toa secret formula used in the spray for lacquer work.It was admitted that one element in the formula washarmful, but it was claimed that ventilation made itnormally innocuous. The air in the factory, it wassaid, was changed 40 times an hour though the HomeOffice suggested a minimum of 30 times. The formulawas shown to the coroner (Dr. Edwin Smith) and toSir Bernard Spilsbury who gave evidence. Thelatter observed that this was a rare occupationaldisease, possibly due to benzine poisoning ; the causeof the disease was not established. Dr. DonaldHunter, research worker in anaemia at the LondonHospital, stated that this form of degeneratoryanaemia was often due to benzine poisoning in othercountries, but in the United Kingdom, where factorieswere excellently ventilated, no such case due tobenzine poisoning had come within his own experience.According to Dr. Hunter the cause of 95 per cent. ofthe cases of aplastic anaemia was unknown.

_

The formula was not disclosed. Had the coronerbeen satisfied by the technical evidence that the

public interest required the full analysis and examina-tion of what was claimed to be a trade secret, he wouldno doubt have insisted on public disclosure. It was

agreed that the cellulose spray contained benzine.The normal ingredients of the lacquer employed inthe factory were stated to be the same as those usedelsewhere in other English factories of the kind ;it was the solvent which was the secret.

PARIS

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)

GOODWILL AS A SALEABLE ASSET

THOUGH French law does not in theory encouragethe putting of a commercial value on the goodwillof a medical practice, holding that the confidenceplaced by a patient in his doctor is not an assetwhich can be priced in currency, there is a growingtendency for newcomers in a district to prefer theshort-cut of a bought succession to the more laboriousmethod known in the vernacular as squatting. Thetransaction between the incoming and outgoingpossessor of a practice is often complicated by thetransfer of a lease and medical and other fittingswhich are just as tangible as the goodwill of the

patients is intangible and hypothetical. In a recentlawsuit, the purchaser of a practice disowned hissignature to the deed of sale, pleading that he wasfree to cancel it as, according to the law, the confidenceof the patients is no commercial commodity. Whilehe lost his case, the situation with regard to the saleof a patient’s goodwill is obscured rather than

clarified ; and the line separating the ethical from theunethical in this matter lacks definition. This isan additional reason for adhesion-to a society whosetechnical advisers can pilot practitioners safely inthese dangerous waters. The Sou Medical now has amembership exceeding 6000. There are five legalexperts -on its staff. The annual subscription is only100 francs, and when an additional 50 francs arecontributed as a subscription to the journal,Le G‘ocours lIIédical, cover for half a million francsis provided in case of lawsuits. There are, of course,other concerns, not of a cooperative character, which