A manual of medical jurisprudence and state medicine, compiled from the latest legal and medical works, of Beck, Paris, Christison, Fodere, Orfila, etc. ... Intended for the use of legislators, barristers, magistrates, coroners, private gentlemen, jurors, and medical practitioners. Containing part I. Medical ethics ... Part II. Laws relating to the medical profession ... Part III. Medical jurisprudence and state medicine ... Part IV. Laws relating to the preservation of public health / By Michael Ryan.

Michael Ryan

Date:: 1836

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence and state medicine, compiled from the latest legal and medical works, of Beck, Paris, Christison, Fodere, Orfila, etc. ... Intended for the use of legislators, barristers, magistrates, coroners, private gentlemen, jurors, and medical practitioners. Containing part I. Medical ethics ... Part II. Laws relating to the medical profession ... Part III. Medical jurisprudence and state medicine ... Part IV. Laws relating to the preservation of public health / By Michael Ryan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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CHAPTER: V. AMERICAN MEDICAL ETHICS. Professional Reputation. The following description of professional reputation was published by Dr. Godman, Professor of Anatomy and Phy- siology in Rutger’s Medical College in 1829, and is so graphic and admirable, that I am induced to copy it. ‘This essay was read, by appointment, before the Philadelphia Medical So- ciety, eb. 8, 1826, and is extracted from a volume, intitled, *¢ Addresses delivered on Various Occasions. By John D. Godman, M. D., &c.,” and politely sent to me. It affords me much pleasure to place American Medical Ethics before British readers. Our profession is coeval with the distresses and sufferings of the human race, and its respectability is as universal as the benefits it is capable of conferring, when rightly administered —those engaged in the discharge of its duties having always been tacitly considered by their fellow-men, as beings pecu- liarly set apart from the rest of mankind, and worthy of an estimation, not conceded to persons employed in merely secular affairs.* ‘The real excellence aiid usefulness of our art-—when worthily practised—has always tended to increase the confidence and admiration of the public; and, if medicine have not attained a degree of perfection and immunity from censure, equal to its venerable age and importance to society, this results from circumstances, which, however they may have injured, are entirely extrinsic to the profession. * “H] medico, en fin, que es medico, es digno de grande estimacion, porque es el conducto por donde Dios embia a los enfermos vn bien tan precioso como la salud: es el instrumento de que vsa la mano de Dios para hazer el mayor de los bienes corporales, y es en la tierra como vna cosa soberana, que se anda haziendo vidas.”—- Don Iwan de Zabaleta.

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