Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1919-05-31 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

ROBERT WATSON, M.D.  SHALL DOCTORS KILL?  For some weeks the community has concerned itself with a question over which thinking folks have worried since the race began—ls it right to put an end to a :ife when, as far as human reason can judge, that life is menaced by incurable disease, and existence is au disturbed that neither ease nor happiness nor work are possible? Several inquests have uccurred, in which the det4i4; have given point and illumination to the problem. and public discussion has tended to tiplit the original qustion in two—(a) Snail the victim of such a malady be held sane and sinless if he commit suicide? and (b) Ought the dcctor in attendance upon such a ease to be allowed to give something to terminate existence?  Moat med.lcal men who have ventured an opinion in the Press upon the subject are strongly against the idea that such a responsihility should be Isaid upon th,?.. profeesion. In the "tliunday Chronicle" of Ap 27th were opinions froio bkorge 13*.znard Shaw and Sir A. Conan Doy:e. The opinion of the former was characteristically clever and confused. He regarded the question as "a notabie piece of evidence a.s to the extent to which the world has gorio stark raving mad on the wii,r-hip of doctors." He is alwass angry with the aorld tor its faith in medical men. Ad yet, he, the scoffer, cannot write even a tiny article like that opinion without betraying such confidence in doctors at must make the whole profession blush from consciousness of its inability to riite to the ideal he cherishes. Ire is sarprised that nobody has managed to "propose that the incurable should he allowed to kilt the doctor. After ail, the patient is the aggrieved party." George Bernard Shaw has said it. He believes that, if we would, we could cure anybody. Faith like that humiliates us. in a "Sunday Chronicle," dated November 4th, 1906, you will find the whole question considered quietl7 and thoroughly by a lady who signs herself Stella M. During. She desires to know whether the Sixth Contmandment or the will of the community should be supreme. She quarrels with the popular veneration for life, the only right we force upon the individual, "whether he wants it or not. If any poor wretch, driven to desperation, attempt to ley down his' life and fail We punish him severely, thinking, no doubt, to enhance his appreciation of a pessession already intolerable by making him several degrees more mlserable than he was before. If he succeed, we hold him up to the public reprobation, and oo revenge ourselves upon his memory. Why do we value lifer Only for what it holds. Life, of itself . . . is valueless. rtilike George Bernard Shaw, she realises that "there are diseases . whose end is sure, and whose progress is marked by pain., pain vv1641 seems to and probably does increase in exact provortion to the decrease in the patient's powers air endurance." She does Lot expect doctors to ,iire these eases. She would not punish doctors for failing to cure them. But she does /ilk that medical skill he not employed in all sorts of in. ways to extend the term of useless misery. She says. "Take the case of a friend of my own. It was one in which the end was sure, and the road thereto one long agony. The patient, a woman, begged, prayed, entreated that a stop should be put to her 'hopeless sufferings Tier daughter, loving her devotedly, nursing her untiringly, joined her entreaties to her mother's that death might he, if not hastened, at least not purposely delayed. Neither was listened to. Palliatives were used that did not pall'ate, anodynes that could not dull. For the rest, by every means known to scienee was that poor soul kept alivr—to suffer. To stave off the only boon she craved, death, means were used so painful that the sight of the doetor or the nurse reduced her to screams of positive terror; after six months of wickedly prolonged suffering silo died,