Philosophical problems in medicine : presidential address before the American Medical Association, at its thirtieth annual session, Atlanta, Ga., May 6, 1879 / by Theophilus Parvin.

  • Theophilus Parvin
Date:
1879
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Philosophical problems in medicine : presidential address before the American Medical Association, at its thirtieth annual session, Atlanta, Ga., May 6, 1879 / by Theophilus Parvin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    NOTES. 1. Page 92, Line 32. Stirling, in one of liis annotations (translation of Schwegler), remarks that the heresy of the German critics is, perhaps, quite as active in England at present as the positivism of Comte; and further utters the warning exclama- tion, ‘‘Truly, we are on the brink of the most fearful crisis in the world's history.” 2. Page 92, Line 36. Dr. Draper. 3. Page 93, Line 18. Baring-Gould. 4. Page 93, Line 23. Alexander Bain. 5. PXge 93, Line 24. See his essay upon “Nature.” Take the following extract as a part of the terrible indictment: “In the clumsy provision which she lias made for that perpetual renewal of animal life, rendered necessary bjr the prompt termination she puts to it in every individual instance, no human being ever comes into the world, but another human being is literally stretched on the rack for hours or days, not unfrequently issuing in death.” physicians know that labor in the vast majority of cases of healthy women, raraly lasts more than a few hours; and that in almost every instance the suffering attendant upon it may be greatly mitigated, sometimes entirety abol- ished, by the judicious use of an anaesthetic. They know, too, that the mor- tality, especially the maternal mortality, is very small, and no intelligent ob- stetrician would say that the mechanism of parturition is clumsy. 6. Page 93, Line 27. Sic volo, sic jubeo ; stat pro ratione voluntas. 7. Page 93, Line 28. “With the conception of two antagonistic powers, which severalty work good and evil in the world, the facts are congruous enough. But with the conception of a Supreme Beneficence, this gratuitous infliction of misery on man, in common with all other terrestrial animals capable of feeling, is abso- lutely incompatible.”—Biology. If permitted to criticize the language of such a master as Herbert Spencer, I would ask, IIow can there be misery to animals unless they are capable of feeling ?
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