OLD QUESTION REOPENED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 224, 21 September 1929, Page 14 (Supplement)

OLD QUESTION REOPENED.

QUICK-WORKING DRUGS. FOR INCURABLE PATIENTS. Tlie question whether a medical man has the right to administer a quickworking drug to a patient suffering from an incurable and extremely painful disease is on the carpet again in France. "Le Matin" asked several prominent people for their opinion. Without exception these men, physicians, philosophers, social workers and ecclesiastics, replied in the negative, Someone, however, invoked tjie testimony of Valerius Maxiinus, a Latin chronicler, who affirmed that in Marseilles at one time the Senate kept a highly poisonous lotion in a strong box.

This quick poison was at the disput-al of anyone who could convince the august Senators that death was preferable folium. The same writer added that it was administered even to people who were extremely happy but who feared that this blessed state would not last. Valerius exaggerated a bit,-> no l doubt, which is nothing unusual in Marseilles. Several great physicians have examined the question. All have concluded that the taking of life was not permissible. Desegenettes, chief doctor of the army of Napoleon, it will be recalled, refused to have poison administered to the plague sufferers at Jaffa when Bonaparte commanded him to do so.