MAY THE DOCTOR KILL?

Evening Star, Issue 19775, 27 January 1928, Page 3

MAY THE DOCTOR KILL?

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS THAN SENTIMENT When 1 find u great many popular newspapers devoting space and headlines to some one episode,_ I assume—the average editor not being a lool—that the episode, or the reflection which it is calcutated to provoke, possesses at any rate the quality of wide human interest. Within the last two or three weeks, (says a medical correspondent in the ‘Weekly Scotsman’) reports of judicial proceedings arising out of two events—unlike, yet in essence having much in common —have occupied just such newspaper prominence. In one case, a distraught father was tried (and subsequently acquitted by the jury) for precipitating the death of his little child, who, according to the evidence, could not possibly have lived more than another day. In the other case, a doctor, giving evidence at a Coroner’s inquest concerning the death of an old man, who, in his opinion, had swallowed a large dose of laudanum in order to put an end to his physical misery, stated that he deliberately refrained from any attempt to restore this man to a world from which he was clearly so anxious to escape.' These two cases do raise again an old question, or, rather, a multiple question. Ls human life a thing which any man may assume the right deliberately to destroy ? If so, under what circumstances is such homicide iciue justifiable? Clearly, in answering these questions, all sorts of religious, ethical, and legal principles are involved. We do not all agree that because a thing is law rful it is right. I doubt if many people, for example, will applaud the young ,1 itiio recently, finding herself in danger with her lover in a boat which, in the circumstances, could only save one passenger, deliberately pushed her companion into the water; even though she had just been found not guilty under the law, since, following the only way of saving one’s own life is, one gathers, not technically murder. And, equally, there are legal murders and legal manslaughters which many would be prepared to say were truly righteous acts. A FREQUENT PROBLEM.

But, here, it is only that part of the problem which more directly impinges on the everyday duties of a doctor, and on his relation to bis patients and the State, that I want to say anything about. Every doctor is constantly being faced with such a situation as this. A man or a woman for whose medical care he is responsible is suffering from a painful disease which he knows to be incurable, and his opinion has, probably, been confirmed by that of a number of other experienced doctors. The patient’s life is one of increasing misery, pain, and helplessness. These will bo progressive till the moment of death. The patient begs the doctor to help him end his wretchedness. The dearest friends of the .sufferer feel obliged by pity to beg the_ same favor. Every doctor has in his possession potent drugs which, causing a moment’s additional discomfort, would within an hour, drown all the sufferings in peaceful sleep—-which, without the patient’s consciousness, would pass into oblivion, To a man of sensitiveness and pity, the proper line of action is not always very clear. , , , . When Berlioz, the composer, lost his sister at the end of a six month’s painful illness, he protested that “Not a doctor dared to have the humanity to put an end to this _ martyrdom. The most horrible thing in the world for ns, living and sentient beings, is inexorable suffering; and we must be barbarous or stupid not to use the sure and easy means now at our disposal to bring it to an end.” THE PHYSICIAN’S CHIEF AIM. That is, undoubtedly, how the problem strikes many_ people, and the solution indicated is probably the one that immediate impulse would dictate to the majority of doctors. But any doctor—and, indeed, anyone else—who soberly reflects on the piatter cannot help realising how great are the dangers attendant on the slightest relaxation of the rule that human life is a thing whose sacredness no mere personal consideration must ever be allowed to minimise. , , When lie examines a patient and prescribes treatment, no physician takes into account the worthiness or unworthiness, the nobility or _ seeming sordidness of the life of the individual before him. A physician of whom this is not true is a dishonorable stain on his profession. A true disciple of iEsculapius can have but one fundamental principle directing his attitude to every_ patient who consults him. His one aim jnust be to guide him truthfully, according to knowledge, that his life may be strengthened and preserved. Whatever may be true in other departments and other relations, it certainly is true here that “hard cases make good law. Which by no means out lawbreaking as the occasional highest duty of a resolute and conscientious man—physician and layman alike.