Arthur Henry Douthwaite

Arthur Henry Douthwaite (13 February 1896 – 24 September 1974) was a British medical doctor, Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians and a prolific medical textbook writer. He was described as the foremost expert on heroin in Britain in the 1950s, or as a leading authority on opiates and he was called as an expert witness for the prosecution in the trial of Dr John Bodkin Adams for the murder of Mrs Edith Morrell.

Career Douthwaite was a senior physician at Guy's Hospital, and an Honorary Physician at All Saints' Hospital for Genito-urinary Diseases.

Douthwaite was Britain's foremost expert on dangerous drugs, and was instrumental in dissuading the Home Office from banning heroin for medical use. Devlin commented that, having assured the prosecution of the soundness of his opinion, he was determined to stand by it in the trial. Leading defence counsel, Frederick Geoffrey Lawrence also secured an admission from Dr Douthwaite that, in his examination-in-chief, his evidence on possible withdrawal symptoms was in response to instances selected by the Attorney-General that might not have been representative. When questioned as to whether this procedure was fair or not, Douthwaite argued that it was up to the defence to question him on that point and not his duty to comment on fairness. Douthwaite also accepted that it was essential to his theory of an intentional killing that Adams knew that opiates would accumulate in the body of an elderly immobile patient. The injection treatment of varicose veins, London, H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd., 1928 The treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, London, H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd., 1929 The treatment of chronic arthritis, London, Cape, 1930 The treatment of asthma, London, H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd., 1930 A guide to general practice, London, H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd., 1932 The treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and sciatica, London, H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd., 1933 An Index of Differential Diagnosis of Main Symptoms (with Herbert French), Bristol, John Wright, 1945 (6th edition) French's Index of Differential Diagnosis, Williams & Wilkins, 1960 The use of heroin, S.I., 1956 Materia medica, pharmacology and therapeutics (with Sir William Hale-White), London, Churchill, 1949, 1959, 1963.