The Honor of the Profession

The World Medical Association aims, among other things: "1) to promote closer ties among national medical associations, and 2) to maintain the honor . . . of the medical profession." Last week, these two worthy aims were brought into sharp conflict as W.M.A. delegates from 39 member nations convened in Manhattan. Before them was a thorny question: what to do about the organized doctors of Germany, some of whom had besmirched the honor of the profession by crimes against humanity.

Many German doctors, cried Israel's Dr. Emil Adler, who fled Czechoslovakia two weeks ahead of the Nazis, had taken the initiative in suggesting and perpetrating such inhuman experiments as forced sterilization and vivisection of human beings. They were also involved in "the ruthless slaughter of 6,000,000 innocent Jews."

In general, these charges were admitted by the organized doctors of West Germany. In "A solemn Declaration ... to the W.M.A.," they further admitted "that in performing these acts and experiments, which have resulted in the deaths of millions . . . the German medical profession has violated the ethical tradition of medicine, has debased the honor of the profession, and has prostituted medical science in the service of war and political hatred." Organized German doctors had not even made a protest while Hitler was in power.

But, said the German doctors last week: "We hereby solemnly give our promise through the W.M.A. to the medical profession throughout the world never again to participate in or permit such a betrayal of medicine. We undertake to expel from our organization those members who have been personally guilty of the crimes referred to above, and those not willing to promise to maintain a high standard of professional behavior in the future."

To the W.M.A.'s general assembly these assurances had greater weight than Dr. Adler's eloquence. It voted, 33 to 3, to promote closer ties with German (and Japanese) doctors by taking them into the worldwide brotherhood of healers.

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