THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



undoubted psychic affinity to ourselves, we must take 

 care to increase their pleasures and mitigate their 

 sufferings. Faithful dogs and noble horses, with which 

 we have lived for years and which we love, are rightly 

 put to death and relieved from pain when they fall hope- 

 lessly ill in old age. In the same way we have the 

 right, if not the duty, to put an end to the sufferings 

 of our fellow-men. Some severe and incurable disease 

 makes life unbearable for them, and they ask for re- 

 demption from evil. However, medical men hold 

 very different opinions on the matter, as I have found 

 in conversation with them. Many experienced phy- 

 sicians, who practise their profession iii a spirit of 

 syrtipathy and without dogmatic prejudice, have no 

 scruple about cutting short the sufferings of the incura- 

 ble by a dose of morphia or cyanide of potassium when 

 they desire it; very often this painless end is a blessing 

 both to the invalids and their families. However, other 

 physicians and most jurists are of opinion that this act 

 of sympathy is not right, or is even a crime; that it is 

 the duty of the physician to maintain the life of his 

 patients as long as he can in all circumstances. I 

 should like to know why. 



While I am dealing with this important and — for the 

 medical conscience — difficult question of social ethics, I 

 may take the opportunity to consider the general attitude 

 of physicians to the monistic philosophy. It is now half 

 a century since I visited the wards in the Julius hospital 

 at Wurtzburg as a medical student. It is true that — 

 happily for me and my patients! — I practised the profes- 

 sion only for a short time after I had passed my examina- 

 tions in 1857; but the thorough acquaintance with the 

 human organism, its anatomic structure and physio- 

 logical functions, which I then obtained has been of in- 

 calculable service to me. I owe to it not only the solid 

 empirical foundation of the special study of my life, 



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