"God gave . . . why take?"

Last week was a week of torment for a Chicago dentist and his wife. Dr. & Mrs. Herman Colan could not decide whether to have their newborn daughter's eyes taken out, or to let her die from the tumor which was blinding her and which, if not immediately stopped by surgery or X-rays, was sure to reach her brain. The infant's left eye first showed the growth when she was four weeks old. If surgeons had removed that eye at once, the child's right eye might have been saved. The distracted parents turned for advice to Grandfather Dr. Morris Hershman. who discovered the tumor. Dr. Hershman shook his head sadly: "As a physician, I believe nature should be allowed to take its course. As a father, and as this child's grandfather, however, I am inclined to the other side--that of trying to save the baby by giving it the only chance that science knows--an operation."

The Colans' rabbi, Talmudist A. E. Abramovitz, gave no better help: "The Mosaic law does not deal with such problems. At the time the Bible was written surgery was not advanced to the extent that it is today, and such problems did not occur. ... It is my opinion that we should let nature take its course. Where men cannot correct, let God make His own decision"

As kindly people pulled his will to-&-fro, as death came closer to his infant daughter each day, Dentist Colan cried: "God gave her the eyes. Why take them from her?" But he finally sat with a jury of ten doctors and two rabbis, concurred with a decision to have the infant's left eye excised, an operation which was immediately performed.

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