Doctor or Mister
SIR,—In the Sunday Press a claim was recently made by " a consulting physician " who dogmatically said, " Let it be known once and for all that the proper way of addressing a consulting physician is, and always has been, ,doctor.' " This statment is incorrect, and to a certain extent mischievous. The law is that the learned doctors, i.e. those who possess the highest academic degrees in all faculties of knowledge, Doctors of Science, Doctors of Law, Doctors of Medicine, Doctors of Literature, etc., have the legal right to the title of Doctor. No other person has. The majority of the medical profession are poaching on preserves they do not own, and have no right to the title of Doctor, though in large numbers they put on an honour they do not possess. They should be sued by the learned Doctors whose title they usurp. They might be addressed as, Medicos in popular parlance, but not as Doctors.—Yours faithfully, MARIE C. STOPES. • Doctor of Science, Doctor of Philosophy. Slorbury Park, Dorking, Surrey.
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