Medicine: Unwilling Patient

Into a Hanford, Calif, hospital, interns brought Leonard Henton Cardwell, 58, graduate of a Tennessee medical college, once a practicing physician, now a greengrocer. He had tried to kill himself. Doctors examined him, found a bullet was lodged below his heart. Only chance for Grocer Cardwell's recovery seemed to be an immediate operation to remove the bullet. At that point the patient spoke up. Under California's medical law, as he well knew, no doctor could operate without the patient's consent. And the patient would not consent. Said he: "If I don't die I will have it to do over again. I had more trouble than I could stand." Asked for an opinion, Attorney General Earl Warren told the hospital that Dr. Cardwell was within his rights. Mrs. Cardwell, found traveling with a friend, and Son Samuel Cardwell, who heard the news by radio, both agreed. So the doctors put their knives away, waited for the patient to suffer a change of heart. Next morning he was dead.