A Comment from a Reader on Forceps

I thank CrisisMaven for the comment and the questions to "Forceps," a post that describes how as many as one million babies and mothers died because a doctor named Chamberlen kept secret his innovation of the use of forceps in delivery.  I encourage you to visit "CrisisMaven's Blog."   CrisisMaven wrote,

But what do you suggest? That every inventor be tortured to own up? And how does one find out that he/she invented anything to be elicited in the first place? And what if Chamberlen had shared the fate of semmelweis? Maybe he had other good reasons to keep his secret and it only came out into the open when the world was prepared to accept it? Don't we remember Galilei?

For those not familiar with Semmelweis, he was a doctor who in 1847 conducted research into the cause of high death rate of mothers and their newborns in Vienna General's maternity ward compared to those who gave birth in their homes.  Doctors at the hospital were required to perform autopsies on all who died at the hospital.  Semmelweis discovered that doctors picked up bacteria in performance of the task which they carried with them as they assisted mothers with birth.  The solution was simple.  Semmelweis required doctors to wash their hands and the death rate plummeted.  Sadly, he was not hailed as a hero and his findings and solution were not only ignored but ridiculed by many in the scientific community.  Semmelweis did not handle the criticism well, growing bitter and developing strange lewd behavior that may have been due to insanity or perhaps the onset of Alzheimer's; he died at forty-seven in a sanitarium. 

Galileo Galilei history is better known.  A great scientist, he was persecuted by the church because he stated that some had misinterpreted the Bible. 

CrisisMaven asks what would I suggest?  Often history is simply lamentable and I believe this is such a case.  Lives were saved because of Chamberlen's innovation.  More would have been saved if he or his descendants had shared this knowledge earlier.  As a lover and defender of liberty, I would not suggest that the government try to elicit secret knowledge from its citizens through torture or force.  However, well defined markets that protected new ideas and innovations through copyrights, trademarks and patents might make sharing ideas more profitable than keeping them secret.  The innovator would have to compare the potential profit of the innovation through secrecy with the risk of discovery to the potential profit through time limited copyright, trademarks and patents.  If the innovator chooses secrecy, society is no worse off.  If she chooses protection through law, she benefits as well as society.  It is a difficult, yet proper function of government to design law that best protects the innovator to encourage innovation and limit monopoly granted privileges to maximize benefits to society.   

CrisisMaven is invited to make a response as a guest post if he desires.
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Metric Martyrs

(HT Drudge) Seinfeld brought us the Soup Nazi, now England brings us the Veggie Nazis.

David Harrison of the Telegraph.co.uk, tells the story of Janet Devers, 64. She was brought up on 13 criminal counts of selling vegetables using traditional measures such as pounds, ounces, and bowls. What a desperado! She insisted on a jury trial. The court dropped the four charges that would allow her to appear before a jury, and convicted her on eight of the remaining charges. Mr. Harrison writes,

Mrs Devers...was ordered by Thames magistrates to pay £5,000 in costs and received a criminal record after being convicted of eight charges of using imperial measures and selling vegetables by the bowl, under the Weights and Measures Act.

Not mentioned in this quote is her brother, Collin Hunt, 60, who has similar legal difficulties. But the story gets better. For whatever reason, the "police" at Weights and Measures were after Mrs. Devers and her brother. In a follow-up article, Mr. Harrison writes,

Council chiefs are to launch an independent investigation into allegations that street market inspectors were ordered to target a convicted "metric martyr" and his sister while ignoring other traders who sold goods in pounds and ounces.

As in the U.S., legal defense is expensive, and the Metric Martyr Defense Fund has been established to help Mrs. Devers and others convicted under the Weights and Measurement Act. Mrs. Devers is seeking to get her convictions overturned. Unfortunately, her brother and she are not the only victims of this abusive law. Christopher Booker, also of the Telegraph.co.uk writes,

The final goal, as Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund insists, must then be a pardon for the late Steve Thoburn and the four other original "martyrs" who were found guilty in 2002...of breaking laws so ridiculous that the EU Commission has even denied they existed (but which are still on the statute book).

Good luck and best wishes from friends of freedom across the pond.

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