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"If the poor little darling has one chance in 1,000,' I said to Dr. Haiselden, 'won't you operate and save it?'

"The doctor laughed. 'I'm afraid it might get well,' he replied.

"As I left the hospital a man said to me. 'I guess the doctor is right from a scientific standpoint. But humanly he is wrong.' 'Thank God,' I answered, 'we are all human.'

"I have so much faith in mothers and in the eternal feminine that I know if the baby's mother ever had been given a chance to see it it would be alive today. Any mother would have loved it."

Health Commissioner John Dill Robertson appeared as the most caustic critic of Dr. Haiselden among the witnesses.

"I went to the hospital the day the baby died," said Dr. Robertson. "I told Dr. Haiselden I did not agree wit him that the child would grow up a mental defective. I thought the child would grow up a mental defective. I thought the child was in a dying condition, and I had doubts that an operation then would save it. Yet I believed it had one chance in 100,000, and I advised Dr. Haiselden to give it this one chance.

"If it had been my case I certainly would have operated. However, I was impressed that Dr. Haiselden was acting according to his convictions. He believed he was right in letting the child die."

"Do you believe Dr. Haiselden was within the law?" asked Coroner Hoffman.

"I am not a lawyer," replied Dr. Robertson. "But I believe a doctor has the right to act on his own judgment and conscience."

"Is there any law to compel a doctor to operate in such cases?"

"None. But I think it very wrong not to save life, let that life be what it may. That is the function of a physician. I believe this baby might have grown up to be an average man. I found no evidence to contravert such a conclusion. I would have operated and saved this baby's life, however, even though I knew it was not mentally sound.

"As commissioner of health, whose duty it is to conserve the health of Chicago," Dr. Robertson added impressively, "I believe that if Dr. Haiselden's action were permitted to stand as an unchallenged precedent it would be the cause of many crimes. Many babies would be killed by unscrupulous physicians as a result.

"If our civilization has reached a stage where the life or death of infants is to be determined on the ground of fitness, then, like the ancient Spartans, we should establish a legal tribunal to pass upon the babies that are to live and those that are to be exposed to death."

If Dr. Robertson was Dr. Haiselden's severest critic, Dr. Carl A. Zell was his best defender.

"I examined the baby's brain after it was removed at the postmortem," said Dr. Zell. "It was very soft. The softening was due to degeneration of the nerve tissues. I think fatty degeneration had set in. Undoubtedly the child would have grown up mentally defective."

Dr. W. H. Burmeister, coroner's physician, on the other hand, was not convinced the baby would have become a mental defective.

The testimony of Dr. Climena Serviss of 803 Sheridan road, Mrs. Bollinger's physician, was colored with pathos and human interest.

"I attended Mrs. Bollinger at the birth of all her children," said Dr. Serviss. "This last was the fourth. At its delivery the thought flashed through my mind, 'Is this child an imbecile?' The mother knew by my expression something was wrong. I telephoned the father. He hurried to the hospital. I showed him the child. 'Dr. Serviss,' he said with trembling voice, 'must this child live?' 'It can't live without an operation,' I told him. 'Don't operate,' he said. 'It is so deformed. It will kill Anna.'

"I then went to the mother. She was calling for her baby. 'Mrs. Bollinger,' I said, 'you have a deformed child.' 'I knew it,' she returned, 'as soon as I looked at you. You have always been so happy when you brought my other children into the world and they are all perfect. This baby must not live. Please don't let my baby live to suffer.'

"After a consultation with Dr. Haiselden," Dr. Serviss concluded, "we decided not to operate to save the baby's life."