Surgeon Sued for Operating Without Patient's Consent
Owing to the great interest and importance of the case referred to briefly in The Journal, Dec. 30, 1922, p. 2243, a more complete account, taken from the South African Medical Record, which has just come to hand, may well be given: In the Cape Provincial Division of the Supreme Court before Justice Watermeyer and a jury, a suit for damages in the amount of $50,000 was entered against Dr. C. C. Elliott, a Capetown surgeon, for amputation of the penis without the consent of the patient or, alternatively, for performing an unnecessary operation. The plaintiff, aged 50, was admitted to the New Somerset Hospital, Capetown, suffering from gangrenous ulcer of the penis. After a careful examination by the defendant, who is visiting surgeon to the hospital, and by Prof. G. B. Bartlett of the University of Capetown, who is pathologist to the