Dr. McDonald [1] mentions that Sutton's Law is "named after the famous bank robber who explained that he robbed banks because ‘that's where the money is.’" He then interprets the Law by saying it "reminds us to try a common diagnosis to explain symptoms before resorting to an uncommon one, because the statistics favor such bets." This interpretation of Sutton's Law is overly broad. The principle was first enunciated by William Dock to support his recommendation to the house-staff that a patient he thought might have schistosomiasis should have a liver biopsy [2]. Thus, in the strictest sense, Sutton's Law should be used to recommend a biopsy. That this may have been Dock's intention is suggested also by the fact that both William Dock and his father, George Dock, were pathologists as well as internists. Others have said that Sutton's Law recommends "proceeding immediately to the diagnostic test most likely to provide a diagnosis, and deplores the tendency to carry out a battery of ‘routine’ examinations in conventional sequence" [2, 3]. Incidentally, Sutton later claimed never to have made the statement attributed to him; thus, the law would be more properly named Dock's Law [2].

I share the following part of a letter, which is unrelated to Sutton's Law but may be of historical interest. It was written by William Dock to me in 1980: "For two months I have been getting clippings, from California to Connecticut, at least 200 now, about the life and death of Sutton. I fear I am only known as an admirer of Sutton's outlook on life, and none of my stones put on the path of progress in medicine will ever be recalled. But at 82 it is enough to be ambulatory and not wholly forgotten!"

Donald A. Gerber, MD

State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn

Brooklyn, NY 11203