Queries in medical ethics / [William Fraser].

  • Fraser, William, -1888.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Queries in medical ethics / [William Fraser]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ranted him. Medical men are often very unfairly blamed, in cases of a hopeless character, for not at once telling their patients that they cannot recover. In cases of such an acute or unmistakeably fatal character as must in all probability terminate the patient’s life in a few days or even hours, and where the shock given by the information to his feelings, would not be likely to turn the balance of chance against him, it is decidedly proper that the friends or the clergyman should let him know that he must prepare for the worst. But if in any chronic case the medical attendant, who is looked upon by the patient as the angel of life and health, really believes that by setting the seal of his testimony to the poor invalid’s death-warrant, his days would be shortened by weeks or even months; or that the shock would be so great that he would refuse, or indeed be unable, to take his food, and would give himself up to the horror of despair ; so that, instead of sinking calmly into the arms of death, as nature provides, he would have to endure a fearful struggle, equally har¬ rowing to himself and to the feelings of his friends, with “ the last enemy,” whose approach had been too abruptly and inconsiderately pointed out to him;— in such a case (which however is probably less often met with than some medical practitioners imagine,) it may be right to with-
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