The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-06-16
HER PLEA FOR DEATH
NOW SONG OF HOPE
Mrs. Harris, Who Sought Eu-
thanasia, Nearing Cure, Urges
That Doctors Be Merciful.
PLAIN TRUTH OFTEN CRUEL
Her Own Improvement, She
Says, Began With CHEEKY
Word of Physician.

Mrs. Sarah Harris. the woman whose
cry for a merciful death to end what APP
peared to be hopeless suffering SO stirred
readers Of THE SUN two years ago. asked
THE SUN yesterday to send out very
different appeal. Mrs. Harris Is getting
well.
She no longer believes that the state
should provide way whereby sufferers
might judicially be put out of their mis-
cry. She has known the blacklist depths
OF despair and now in the Joy Of know
ing what It is to hope again she appeals
to physicians to be merciful with the
truth and not to take from those whose
cases they know TO be without hope the
mercy of that word.
Mrs. Harris said yesterday that the Bit
terness OF spirit out OF which her cry for
euthanasia came was born of the calmly
rendered verdict OF the doctors that she
had no chance-that she must live out
helpless pain racked life, a burden to her
self and her family. 1t was "A word OF
hope, she believes, that did more than any
thing to quicken the nerves that ceased
TO carry other than pain impulses when
the strange malady that paralyzed her
from the neck down seized her nearly
five years ago.
As she sat yesterday in the wheel chair,
which she IL able to occupy now n part
OF the time. Mrs. Harris said 1t was not
her own case alone that had moved her
to ask physicians to temper truth with
mercy. She had Just seen. she said. a
young woman. hardly more than q girl.
from whose life all light had gone be-
cause a great diagnosticlan had told her
that she was suffering from an incurable
form of heart disease.
THAT girls life. whether ii lasts for
weeks or years. IL ruined" she said. SHE
must live always under the shadow OF
that verdict It has broken her spirit
81 don't see why such things have TO
be- she continued. III there II abso-
lutely no hope for the sufferer why need
they he told? Why magnify the suffering
II such must die let them die In peace
Mrs. Harris said that experience had
led her TO believe that physicians COM
monty tell the truth with unmerciful
bluntness to the incurable.
MANY master minds of medical science.
skilled diagnosticians OF worldwide repu-
tation. told me coolly and coldly that I
would never be better" she said. They
advised me to go to a home for incura-
bles. They said, 1T Is useless for your
family TO spend a fortune on you when
when I asked for euthanasia I would
have hailed IL as a welcome deliverance.
Now I shudder to think what might have
happened had such law been enacted"
or the beginning OF her own recovery
Mrs. Harris spoke briefly. She said that
last October a physician who was visit
ing the sanitarium where she il under
treatment dropped In to talk to her. She
was not his patient, but in casual CONVEX
sation he asked her the history OF her
case. When she had told him he said:
"Why. as sure as I'm a walking man
you'll he a walking woman
That was all. but the word of hope,
Mrs. Harris believes. did more than the
skill of her physicians to begin her cure.
81 told my sister," said Mrs Harris.
that / was going to walk again, and
seven weeks later I started to move
| Mrs. Harris doesn't call 1t faith cure.
| She said that when the physicians de-
! clared her case hopeless her friends sen,
| to her practitioners OF every known cul,
| and that their mlnistrations were withou,
effect. 1t was just warm word or hui
man hopefulness that supplied the motive
power for the beginning OF her cure. she
| heliayeS