That most difficult question, the right of a person suffering from an incurable disease to end his life, or to-have it ended by the doctor, has been brought up again by Sir James Purves-Stewart, the well-known doc-for. Speaking to the Voluntary Euthanasia Society he told of a woman a very old friend of his, suffering from cancer, who begged him to give her something so that she might go to sleep and not wake terview afterwards with the "Daily Telegraph" Sir James said that instances of doctors hastening an inevitable death are commoner than is supposed.
On the other hand it would probably be the experience of most of us that doctors will fight like demons to save life however hopeless the struggle. An instance came to my personal notice recently of an elderly lady who died after nine months of lingering illness which it was plain almost from the outset, could have only one ending. Yet her doctor strove to save her with a resourcefulness and determination which earned the praise of all who saw it.
Lord Ponsonby introduced a Voluntary Euthanasia Bill in the House of Loids in 1936 but it was rather clump ssily framed and came to nothing. Many clergy are in favour of euthaasia; one of them a very disti guished North Country Canon, came out strongly in favour of it at the time of Lord Ponsonby's attempt. So even on religious grounds there is no clarity about it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.