# ‘We All of Us Make Mistakes’: Medical Negligence in Interwar General Practice

## TL;DR

This paper explores a case of medical negligence in the 1920s involving a doctor's treatment of a newborn, revealing broader issues in medical practice and accountability.

## Contribution

The paper provides a detailed historical analysis of medical negligence through a specific case in interwar Britain.

## Key findings

- The case highlights the lack of informed consent and transparency in medical treatment.
- It reveals the consequences of a doctor's improper treatment and lack of training.
- The case underscores broader societal and legal implications of medical negligence.

## Abstract

In August 1920, Dr Lysander Maybury began a course of weekly injections into the longitudinal sinus of newborn Leslie Shewry. Although Maybury told Leslie’s parents that he would be giving their son injections, he did not tell them that he had diagnosed congenital syphilis. The precise nature of Leslie’s treatment was also unknown to his parents until many years later when they brought a case for damages against Maybury. They alleged that he had wrongly diagnosed and unnecessarily and improperly treated their son, leaving him permanently disabled. Furthermore, they alleged that he lacked the necessary skills and training to perform such delicate injections and that he was negligent in persisting with treatment when he knew that Leslie suffered convulsions after each injection. Shewry v. Maybury is a microhistory in which the intimate disruptions wrought by one man reveal a great deal about the nature and consequences of medical negligence in interwar Britain.