RIGHT TO DIE.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10748, 20 November 1928, Page 3

RIGHT TO DIE.

THE INC UK ABLE PATIENT. LONDON, August 2nd. What should be, the attitude of a doctor towards hopeless cases of cancer? Should he prolong “the. act of dying?” This question formed the substance of sonic observations by Sir Thomas Herder before the section on “Medicine and Diagnosis” at the Cancer Conference. “In considering the treatment of cancer cathexia when the g owth is inoperable,”, he said, “it may be well first-of all to decide what should he our attitude when fjiced with these distressing cases. “Surely it should be to prolong life by all the means in- our power consistent with not adding to the patient’s discomforts. Once wo can get rid of the stigma attaching to the disease—and this will disappear in time—it- will be as discreditable for the practitioner to neglect the treatment of the tabetic, the chrome nephrit'c, or the tuberculous patient. “It has been said ..that prolongmg life in hopeless diseases is of jm ‘ptqlonglng the act of dying.’ When this is so, humanity rightly dictates that the doctors zeal is, -wholly misplaced." Put ns to this no universal rule can only be solved by the exercise > of great discretion, and the reflection that the patient is the centre figure on the stage. * ’• . , “The patient’s life is his own and no olio eiso’s nrerogative, least of all his most sensitive friends. These often plead Tor, the advent of doal.li as a relief from their own participation in the strugglo ns much as for Ins.”