MEDICINE AND MORALS 



geon sees that the relentless infliction of 

 great pain is often true mercy, the only true 

 mercy, the sole method of preventing 

 greater pain. Society needs to master this 

 lesson. All of us sometimes and most of 

 us at all times, in respect to certain matters, 

 are cruelly kind, unmercifully merciful, 

 gruesomely gentle, savagely sweet. To 

 avoid a twinge of pain here we let loose a 

 world of it there. We should be braver. 

 Resist the pain devil and often he will flee' 

 from you. The excessive fear of pain is an 

 evil which needs to be carefully pointed out, 

 and insisted on. A man or a woman by 

 whom pain is too much dreaded, who keeps 

 up too diligent effort to avert it, actually 

 suffers more than one who fears pain less 

 and makes smaller provision for its avoid- 

 ance. Exactly the same is true of every 

 community and of mankind at large. The 

 medical profession must work out this cal- 

 culus of pain. They alone have the neces- 

 sary data or can make the needed observa- 

 tions. 



Most of us would unhesitatingly say that 



3 6 S 



