ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the infertile patient was characterized and treated by the medical profession. The Department of Health for Scotland epitomized this ignorance and secrecy by admitting to the Feversham Committee that they simply had no precise information about the extent of the practice or about the particular doctors' who provided it. The medical evidence submitted to the Feversham Committee suggests that semen, or more accurately its donor, was required to be satisfactory in three key respects: physical, psychological and moral. A valuable snapshot of medical thinking and practice is offered by the evidence presented to the Feversham Committee. A range of Scottish medical witnesses submitted written and oral evidence to the Departmental Committee on Human Artificial Insemination: a handful of individual gynaecologists and psychiatrists based in Scotland. As well as representatives from the Faculty of Medicine of the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Department of Health for Scotland.
