The morning call., 1891-06-28
IS KILLING EYER
UNSUITABLE?
Physicians Deny the Right to Hasten
Death to Alay Pain.
Views of Medical Men as to the Use Of
Anasthetics to Relieve the Agony of
Dying Men in Unusual Cases.


The recent death from hydrophobia Of
Richard S. Bartine, leading eOunSelOr-at-
law Of Asbury Park. n. j., has again re-
viVed the question whether science VIII ever
consider it justifiabIe to relieYe incurable
and unbearable torture by Fastening the
death of the sufferer, says the New York
Press.
The case of a locomotive engineer, pinned
under a wrecked locomotive and slowly but
surely roasting to death, has been urged as
one instance in which it would be justifia-
bic to place the means of self-destructiOn
within reach of the sufferer. If not actually
to kill the poor victim, as you would less
sensitive animal-in kindness.
SnguIarly enough, in determining this
question, perhaps as in almost no other, the
promptings of humane feeling and mductive
reasoning are not paramount, even in the
scientific mind, which. from Its training and
experience, can measure the consequences
and effects more accurately than the
emotional tenderness and soIicitude of the
mind, actuated solely by sympathetic con-
siderationS This fact will clearly appear in
the following interviews with leading ply
Siclans, who, for the purpose of ascertain
ing by what may be called authoritative
statements, were asked by Press reporters if
in any emergency of suffering or upon any
hypotheSesis of professional practice ply
stefan would be justified in administering
morphine or any other anesIhetic to hasten
death.
NO ARGUMENT AGAINST THEIR USE.
DR.. Rufus p. Lincoln Of % West Thirty
first street said that il was always lustifable
10 1,NV Sipiau nnpSthpfIpS of
kind to accomplish the purpose Of alevlat-
ing pain, even upon the near approach of
death, hut not to hasten dissolution. As TO
what kind OF anRSthetics it was proper to
use the physician was only governed by his
Judgment and knowledge OF the state and
progress of the disease and the condition of
tie patient whom he WIS treating. There
was no possible argument against the use of
aE8Sthetics to relieve great suffering and
acute agony under the above circumstances.
He had himself used aDaeSthetles In advanced
stages OF consumption.
DIR. Sayre OF 2S5 Fifth avenue said the
question as 10 what would be justitiable
upon the part of physician in the treat
mtnt of certain cases, which might be re-
garded as absolutely fetal, took wide
range and would require discussion at
greater length than he had time to give to
the subject under existing circumstances,
but he evidently did not regard the admin
istering of drugs or poisons to hasten death,
ever upon the near approach OF inevitable
dissolution, as Ju>titlabie.
NOT UNSUITABLE IN FASTENING DEATH.
DR.. Louis Cohn of 100 Lexington street
said that as far as the medical profession
can answer the question as 10 what extent
physician W ouId be justified in going in the
matter Of administering poison to hasten
death in case of the acute agony Of the pa
tient, the fact was that he would not be JUS
tilted at ALL He was under the impression
hot Sha oal aNHa nonfaiuaA N a6 M nj
ton against such practice, ana it was his be-
lief that no physician had the right or
would be justifiable under any circumstances
III resorting to such means.
Terrific pains were not apt to be present
when a patient was making near approach
to death, or, to be more explicit, when a pa
tient has reached the point where dying be-
gins he rarely suffers from acute pain, or if
the pain exists he is not conscious Of it. The
physician was the best judge as to what
means should be used to alleviate pain in
certain stages of a disease or wound, but
morphine is the only anesthetc to use when
death is near. While DR.. Coin thought that
physician would be perfectly justified IN
relieving chronic ailments or great ag0nies
by the use of morphine, he would not be JUS
tifiable in Fastening death.
DIR. Thomas Robertson of 2S East Tween
tieth street, said no physician would be
justified In Fastening death by any means
or knowledge at his command, ana for this
reason, it would permit physician to COM
nit murder, under the plea OF Justiable
homicide anu allow an unpriDcipled phySi-
clan undue latitude. He might, in fact, be-
come accessory to crime, if permitted to
resort to the use of drugs to hasten the de-
Mise OF patient. 1t was on this account
that the doctor WAS emphaticaly opposed
to cremation. although, from sanitary
standpoint, incarceration was probably the
best means to an end
AS TO CREMATION.
But the burning of a body removed all
and every possible evidence whereby the
crime of physician should he administer
poison to hasten death under peculiar or
suspicious circumstances, which might not
at the time be present, but which might
subsequently appear, might be traced by
analysis of the body even after it had been
for some time inferred.
In answer to an inquiry as to whether he
had not treated cases wherein he thought
that, from humane considerations, the use
of pOiSons or drugs TO hasten death would
have been justifable, the doctor replied,
unheSitatingly, that he had known such
cases. ami particularly alluded TO eases
of cancer, where, he said, in human
sympathy, he would have liked to have
felt that he had the right to administer
an antidOte to relieve pain when death
was pending. but he added that even if
he had felt that he had both the moral aud
the legal right, he would have hesitated to
use it, and, in fact, would not have resoited
to il, because, for one reason, some foolish
friend of the patient would surely have
stated and attempted circumstantially 10
prove, that the sntferer would have recov-
cred. Or some other friend would have ap-
peared with an alleged specific or cure,
which, owing to the tenacity with which
people cling. as he himself did under
most circumstances, to the axiom that
while there is life there is hope, would
be sure to prejudice the public against the
physician and all his knowledge, abstract
and scientific. In cases of approaching dis
solution, where acute and agoniZing pain is
present, the physician uses morphine to
judicious extent to allay the suffering. So
long as the profession had the use of NOR
phins aud kindred drugs no patient need
suffer the eSeTuciating agQnieS which one
sees pictured in many newspapers, except
in cases of fire or under other extraordinary
clreuM stances.
HYDRoPHoBIA A HISTORICAL DISEASE.
Speaking of hydrophobia as one of the
diseases which cause great pain and Sube-
quent exhaustion, ending in de ,sh, DIR.
Robertson said he regarded it as a hys-
terical disease. He was not a believer
in bydrophobia as ordinarily accepted,
but he did believe in rabies caused by
the absorption of poison caused by bite
or wound made by rabid animal or per-
son. Hydro phobia, however as generally
accepted and so called, was species of hys-
terra. Since the establishment of DR.. Glib
ler's institute there had been more alleged