Dear Ann Landers,
just finished the column in which you staunchly defend the medical profession. You very politely say that no human is infallible and that, unfortunately, when a physician makes a mistake somebody becomes severely ill or dies. This is advice? I am enclosing in my letter to you a clipping from the London Sunday Times. It reports one of the most interesting errors of all time. A surgeon in Birmingham, England, amputated the wrong leg. I agree with you, Ann, that no human is infallible, and I can understand certain kinds of "mistakes," but this is ridiculous. Have you the courage and decency to print my letter?-San Jose Reader

Dear Jose,
Thank you for your letter and for the clipping. Outrageous mistake? Unquestionably so. But the comments of the seventy-five-year-old widow who is now legless were far more deserving of notice than the doctor's mistake. She said, "Whoever it was who made the operating error probably saved hundreds of lives before he got to me. I happened to be the unlucky one. But as I told them at the time, we all make mistakes, and I am not going to have one word said against him." What a sterling example of charity! That this woman was able not only to forgive but to defend the man, is mercy in its best sense. Thank you for sending me the clipping. It con-tained something of value for all of us.