Medicolegal judgments

Even eminent people are soon forgotten, and I don’t suppose that the name of Sir John Collie (1862-1935) will mean much to most readers, even though he was knighted twice, first for his medical services to the Metropolitan Water Board, and second for his medical services during the first world war.

The nature of his researches can perhaps best be grasped from the titles of a few of his books: Fraud and its Detection in Accident Insurance Cases (1912), Malingering and Feigned Sickness (1913—dedicated to “my friend the British Workman to whom I owe much”), and Fraud in Medico-Legal Practice (1932).

His obituary in the BMJ was not such as one might …