§ Mr. J. DAVISONasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Lunacy Board of Control have recently on several occasions construed the words medical practitioner, occurring in Section 49 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, into the words mental specialists; and whether, in view 666W of the fact that this Section supplies the only efficient safeguard against detention under the hand of an unjust practitioner who may desire to keep a patient in an asylum for his own purposes, he will take steps to secure that the opinion of a general practitioner shall be taken in such cases?
§ Sir A. MONDThe applications under the Section since the 1st July last have related to five patients only. In two cases the Board of Control accepted the medical practitioner suggested; in two the Board asked for some other practitioner to be appointed in the place of one of the two suggested; in the fifth case an application by the husband was acted on in place of an application by someone not related to the patient. As regards the second part of the question, in the opinion of the Board of Control the judgment of a medical practitioner who has made a special study of mental illness is of greater value than that of a practitioner who has had relatively little experience of such cases.