Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1899-11-09
EOUTSlDE POINT OF yIEw.|
Written tor the rlm,s.Renubli team.

~ lew WEEKS ago Judge simeon T..
Baldwin, a New Haven Law School
professor and president OF the Ameri-
can Science Association, delivered an
address before the member of that
body at Saratoga which has awakened
worldwide discussion. In substance he
claimed that man has a right to die
when his time comes. and should be al
lowed by the ysicians to die in peace.
The paper is too long for space here,
but some extracts fromit will be given.
In part he said:
1t Is a great responsibility this. that
rests on modern medicine. 1t has a
power to hold us back from the grave.
for few days, a few weeks. a few
years, to which the physician of antiq-
uity was stranger. But are we sure
that the course of ma ture with mankind
is really at fault? May not she know
best when she has had enough of us in
this state of being? Or, to rise to a
higher and truer level, may not the God
over all, who has ordain ed these laws
of bodily decay, though He has also or
dained these laws later discovered by
us, of scientific physiology. be safely
left to name the time for calling His
children home? That He has given
men some brief power to hold them
back is not ofitself and always a war
rant for its use, when under all rea-
sonable possibilities the result will be
only a short postponement of an inev-
liable and barren of any Intermediate
opportunities for good
In civilized nations, and particularly
of late years, it has become the pride of
many in the medical profession TO pro-
long such lives at any cost. discomfort
or pain to the sufferer, or of suspense
or exhaustion to his family.
The patient has come to point
where he can not bear the thought of
eating. The throat declines to swallow
what the stomach is no longer able to
digest. He Graves nothing but to be
alone, A few hours, and nature will
come to his release. She is already,
perhaps, fast throwing him into that
happy Inconsistencies of pain which
we call lethargy. The vital forces have
been spent. The main spring is
broken and the watch has run down.
1T can be made to tick feebly for min
ute or two by shaking it hard enough;
but cui bono? Only another main
spring can mend 1t. Only another soul.
another world. can give value to this
human life that is ready to flicker out
because it is Worn out
The family ask the doctor If there is
no hope and he responds with some
sharp stinulant; some hypodermic in
lection; some TRANSMISSION or infusion to
fin out for a few hou y the bloodless
Veins: some device for bringing into
the congested lungs that can not
breathe the vital air. some cunning
do the stomachs work. The sufferer
wakes to pain, and grasps back to
few more days of life.
Recently New York police judge
had before him prise ner charged with
the crime of attempted suicide. He
discha him after delivering an
opinion that suicide was not only justi-
fable under certain circumstances. but
q praiseworthy act. The Judge citec
several imaginary cases in proof of his
argument. An Iowa physician referrine
to This subject mentions this real case
A railway wreck occurred. Pinned IN
der The upturned engin ne was a man be
| ing slowly roasted to death. He begged
OF the spectators. who We're powerles.
to relieve him, for a revolver or knif'
TO end his sufferings. but SO firmly i'm
planted in our nineteenth centur,
minds is the sacredneSs of life that thi4
man was allowed to slowly die in tor
! ture indescribable. Judge Baldwin
! touches on this point only in anothe
/ way. He says
/ IF SO, a natural death. coming in or
/ binary course, may be the divine wa.
! of calling one up from a condition o
existenc to which he is unified, or il
1 which he is not needed. to one In whic
he is needed, and needed at once. T
i postpon 1t. to protract a life in doin
4 so by medical skill beyond it's seeming
II y appointed bound may, looked at i
this light, risk the loss of filter plac
lin a larger life-the loss of God give
/ opportunity"
i SO far all of this sentiment ha
touched upon the ending of life an
the right or wrong of human agencie
in prolonging that life. But there is
vast field of theorizing concerning tn
ac tions of human agences, in allow
Ing death of infants at the hour
birth. Said an Iowa doctor to TIL
writer, The public knows but little Z
the number of children which for goo
and sufficient reasons Ito him) phys
Ician allows but few hours of life.
He mentioned a case where he assis tie
lin bringing into the world a child wit
J lone of the natural organs entirely al
sent Under no possible combinatio
of circumstances, even the best scier
Itific treatment. could that child surviy
more than few months. With III
Iconsent of parents. he performed a
opera ton that resulted in the death
: the child. which if omitted, possibl
: the child would have lived sever;
weeks, but those weeks necessarily,
pain and suffering. The same doctc
told of ca SEES where malformed, IDIOT
blind and crippled children Were a
lowed to live. to cause years of SUI
!, fering both on the part of the chill
( and parent, and expressed as his opir
: ion, that the phys stefan in charge di
not understand his duty in such eli
Gums tances.
The press generally condemns IL
: arguments of the judge. They sho
!. the danger of allowing doctors to a.
1 sumo any case is incurable. The
point out that il a preced ent is estal
lished. that such power may be abuse
: Curiously enough the religious side
but little touched upon. Nearly all