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Show British Doctor Tells I About Mercy Killings! . . t Confesses to Giving Chloroform : To Incurable Patients. j LONDON. According to legal authorities nothing could be done about Dr. Edwin Alfred Barton, 84, who made a confession that he had mercifully killed patients incurably and painfully ill. They said his statements in support "f euthanasia could not be grounds for prosecution. prosecu-tion. j Dr. Harcon, for 4(1 years a general gen-eral practitioner, described his i "first" !. rc'y death m-the University Univer-sity and o.tW Hospital magazine. nccau.-f I hved a few doors off I was 'asked to tike over." Tie Said. "The man was about 50 and his case needed very constant care. How the poor man prayed to die! How he implored me to end it all and help him out of it. His condition con-dition worried me greatly from his eternal entreaty to me to take his life. "At five o'clock on a Sunday morning my night bell rang. 1 guessed what was wrong . . . just as I was, in pink and white pajamas, I rushed around to the house and raced upstairs. He was . . . all but dead and ... I poured some chloroform onto a corner of a towel and let him go. "This wa my first case of its kind and it made a deep impression on me, and when later I had one or two cases still more horrible I began be-gan to feel that some means should be legalized by which cases under absolute certainty of death associated associ-ated with constant and unrelievable suffering could be assisted and their yearning for death and relief assured." as-sured." A bill to legalize euthanasia will shortly be presented to the House of Lords where a similar bill died in 1936. Unofficial legal sources said no charge against Dr. Barton was possible pos-sible unless: 1. Death could be proved; 2. It could be shown his action hastened death; 3. The physician physi-cian acted knowingly. |