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摘要: SIR,-Your leading article" Not the language of medicine"(6 January, p 2) raises a point of considerable general interest, though few members would identify this from the somewhat obscure title and others might well be deflected from it in wrongly concluding that the issue was one of freedom to express an honestly held opinion. On this point surely the BMJ and I are as one. In medicine, as in any other profession, freedom to disagree and, by expressing disagreement, to try to alter whatever it is that has aroused disagreement is allimportant to the survival of a free profession. But how and to whom, assuming that one has chosen to join a society, should one express disagreement if one wishes to alter itspolicies for the better? This is the issue. Perhaps I might illustrate my own opinion on this point, which I believe many would share, by saying this. Nobody who knows me at all, let alone those who know me well, could possibly describe me asa conformer. I admit to a restless temperament frequently seeking to improve things and have therefore all my life been an arguer, a protester, a writer of memoranda to ginger up presidents, secre-taries, or chairmen of committees-in other words, quite often a nuisance at times and (I freely admit it) perhaps an embarrassing nuisance. Indeed, during the war many of my friends told me that I argued so much with higher authority that I should probably be out of the army and back in civilian practice earlier than any of them-but through a court martial. But-and herein lies the point-having for around 40 years been a member of many medical societies and, of course, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England …