274

In England Now

The older I become the more often I travel, and I am

beginning to fancy myself as something of an authority oninternational variations in accommodation. Hotel roomsin North America do not differ greatly one from the other,and the traveller who has awakened panic-stricken in aToronto hotel room believing that he has forgotten toleave Salt Lake City the previous morning is one to whomboth sympathy and understanding can be extended.However, in the bathroom variations of an intriguing

sort can still be found. My childhood was traumatic asfar as bathing was concerned; I still remember the brassgeyser of uncertain temperament which presided over ourbathroom. It was fired by a roaring circle of coal-gasjets, and in return gave forth a trickle of tepid bathwater.If water was used elsewhere in the house the supply to thegeyser was cut off, and the whole machine glowed rapidlyto a sullen red heat. Starting the monster involved a notvery minor explosion, and once I was taken to see a house,the wall of which had been blown away by such a geyserone Saturday night. Consequently we only bathed whenmy father was at home, and the whole business seemedabout as safe as removing the fuse from an unexplodedbomb. In adult life I find myself somewhat surprised andrelieved at the ease with which one can get a bath, butthere are still variations.

I have spent a happy half-hour in a Winnipeg hoteltrying to get an extremely modern waste-plug to function.Its system of levers was obviously ingenious but quiteunapproachable unless one first removed the bath. InDenmark I met the most complicated hot/cold shower

system I have ever encountered. It was located on thefar side of the tub, and to get at it one had to lean across indirect line with about six high-pressure jets. I am not

mechanically gifted, but quite inquisitive, and I retiredfrom that encounter fully clothed and soaked to the skin.In a very expensive hotel in the United States the plumbingdid not work at all. The only other occasion I have beenconfronted with this situation was in France just after thewar. The manager of the American hotel did not find thecomparison at all amusing.Nowhere else can one attain the superb sense of luxury

which is possible in Malaysia. Here in country districtsthe bath-house used to contain, and I hope that it still

does, a man-sized earthenware pitcher. This was filledwith warm water, and one climbed in for a quiet wallow,more hot water being added when required. The onlyother system which can compare with this is the Finnishsauna. The conclusion is clear-the more simple the

method, the greater is likely to be one’s enjoyment of it.The only thing I have against the sauna is that the acousticsare sometimes poor, and my renderings of carefully chosenexcerpts from the Puccini operas are less impressive thanusual.

* * .

The Great Reprint Mystery: part the nth. Police southof the Thames are baffled by a deluge of requests for

copies of a paper about vincristine. Flummoxed theyapproach a private firm in Adam Street. No problem, themodus operandi was recognised immediately. A few weeksearlier a bag of dental instruments had been handed in at aKent police station, and, anxious to restore the bag to itsowner, a member of the station staff placed a letter in theappropriate specialty journal. But nothing escapes the

eye of Current Contents, and in due course the letter wasindexed. Our helpful policeman’s name is not an uncommonone and side by side with his came another almost thesame. A few careless secretaries later and ... What we’dlike to know now is whether the residents of Indianapolishave been plagued by Kentish parking tickets.

Medicine and the Law

Doctor to Disclose Driver’s IdentityA DOCTOR treated a man at evening surgery and then,

at his request, treated a girl who said that she had beeninvolved in a car accident. The doctor advised both

patients to visit the police but did not seek their consentto disclose their identity to the police. Some three weekslater a police officer asked the doctor to divulge the nameand address of either or both patients, or to give suchinformation which could lead to the police discoveringthem. The request was made because a stolen car hadbeen involved in an accident on the day when the doctortreated the patients, the driver and passengers had runaway immediately after the crash, and the driver wasalleged to be guilty of dangerous driving. Since the car-owner could not give the information, the requirement wasmade of the doctor as being " any other person [who] shallif required ... give any information which it is in his powerto give and may lead to the identification of the driver ",under section 168(2)(b) of the Road Traffic Act, 1972. Thedoctor undisputedly had in his possession informationwhich might have led to the driver’s identification, but herefused then and later in writing to divulge the informationon the ground that it was a professional confidence and todo so would be a breach of the professional conduct

principle of refraining from disclosing voluntarily to a

third party information learnt directly or indirectly in

professional relationship with a patient, subject to excep-tions including the patient giving consent and the informa-tion being required by law. He was convicted of anoffence under section 168 and fined E5. He appealed onthe ground that he was not within the words " any otherperson ", which were not to be construed as having anunrestricted meaning so as to cause a doctor to act inbreach of the duty of confidence on which the patient wasentitled to rely, and not within the words " in his power

"

because power must include a legal right, and he had nolegal right to disclose.Mr Justice BOREHAM said that the court’s first duty was

to look at the Act and give the words their ordinary, naturalmeaning and, in the absence of equivocation or ambiguity,to give effect to such meaning unless something in thecontext of section 168 of the Act of 1972 suggested that aspecial or restricted meaning should be given to them.There was no ground for saying that a restricted meaningshould be given to the words " any other person ", whichwere clear and unambiguous. His Lordship was driven tothe conclusion that a doctor acting within his professionalcapacity and carrying out his professional responsibilitywas within the words " any other person " in section 168.As to " power ", no definition would be attempted, it wasan ordinary word, and there was no doubt that a practi-tioner in the circumstances in which the doctor foundhimself had the power. It begged the question to say that,but for section 168, he would not have exercised the powerbecause of his duty to his patient. It was comforting tothink that the section was wide enough to give the policeas wide a power as possible in the hope of detecting peoplewho, stealing cars and disappearing after accidents, mightcause untold harm to others, and that the doctor only hadto disclose information which might lead to identificationand which was not otherwise confidential. The resultwas within the rules of doctors’ professional conductcode.

Mr Justice MAY agreed, the Lord Chief Justice gave aconcurring judgment, and the appeal was dismissed witha certificate that a point of law of general public importance