Answer to the religious objections advanced against the employment of anaesthetic agents in midwifery and surgery / By J.Y. Simpson.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Answer to the religious objections advanced against the employment of anaesthetic agents in midwifery and surgery / By J.Y. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    tliis work for him, and elaborate the bread which he eats. The ever active intellect which God has be- stowed upon man, has urged him on to the discovery of these and similar inventions. But if the first curse must be read and acted on literally, it has so far urged him on to these improper acts by which he thus saves himself from the effects of that curse. Nay, more; if some physicians hold that they feel conscientiously constrained not to relieve the agonies of a woman in childbirth, because it was ordained that she should bring forth in sorrow, then they ought to feel conscien- tiously constrained on the very same grounds not to use their professional skill and art to prevent man from dying; for at the same time it was decreed, by the same authority and with the same force, that man should be subject to death,— dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. If, on the other hand, it be allowed that it is justifiable in the physician to try to counteract the effects of one part of the curse, and justifiable in the agriculturist to try to counteract the effects of another part, it is surely equally justifiable in the accoucheur to try to counteract the effects of a third part of it. But if, on the contrary, it is unjustifiable for him to follow out this object of his profession, it is equally unjustifiable for the physician and agriculturist to follow out the corresponding objects of their pro- fessions. Are those who maintain the uncanonical character of using human means to contravene the ]iains of childbirth ready, then, to maintain that we should not use human means to contravene the ten- dency to death, or to increase the fertility and produce of the ground except by personal labour, and the actual sweat of the brow ? To be consistent, they must of necessity maintain this strange and irrational view of man, and of the duties and destinies which God has