Charles Coppens

“ In fact, if a physician, misled by any of those many theories which are often inculcated or at least insinuated by false scientists, can ever convince himself, or even can begin to surmise that, after all, there may be no such thing as a higher law before which he is responsible for even his secret conduct, then what is to prevent him from becoming a dangerous person to the community? If he see much temporal gain on the one hand, and security from legal prosecution on the other, what would keep him in the path of duty and honesty? ”

“ Uniting the external decorum of a gentleman with a thorough knowledge of your profession, and with what is still more important, the virtues of a conscientious man and a sincere Christian; ever true to the sound principles of morality which I have endeavored to explain and to inculcate in these lectures: you will be an honor to yourselves, an ornament to your noble profession, the glory and joy of your Alma Mater, a blessing to the community in which Providence will cast your lot as the dispensers of health and happiness and length of days to your fellow-men. ”

“ A third duty of the physician is to use only safe means in medical and surgical practice. He has no right to expose his patient to needless danger. What is to be thought of the use of such remedies as will either kill or cure? They cannot be used as long as safer remedies are available and capable of effecting a cure; for neither Doctor nor patient has a right to expose a human life to unnecessary risk. But when no safer remedies are going to effect a cure, then prudence itself dictates the employment of the only means to success. ”

“ No man has a right to be cruel; cruelty is a vice, it is degrading to man’s noble nature. But vivisection practised for scientific purposes is not cruel. Cruelty implies the wanton infliction of pain: there are people who delight in seeing a victim tortured; this is cruelty or savagery, and is a disgrace to man. Even to inflict pain without benefit is cruel and wrong; but not when it is inflicted on the brute creation for the benefit of man, unless the pain should be very great and the benefit very small. Certainly it is right to cultivate habits of kindness even to animals ”

“ The more we study the sciences—astronomy, biology, botany, physiology, medicine, etc.—the more we are lost in admiration at the beautiful order we see displayed in the tiniest as well as in the vastest portions of the creation. And shall man alone, the masterpiece of God in this visible universe, be allowed to be disorderly, to be a failure in the noblest part of his being, to make himself like to the brute or to a demon of malice, to waste his choicest gifts in the indulgence of debasing pleasure? ”

“ There can be no intentional or formal guilt in the little innocent babe. But can we argue that the actual situation of the child is an unjust act, unconsciously done, yet materially unjust, unlawful? Thus, if a madman would rush at me with a sharp sword, evidently intent on killing me, he may be called an unjust aggressor; though, being a raving maniac, he does not know what crime he is committing, and is formally innocent of murderous intent. Materially considered, the act is unjust, and I can defend myself lawfully as against any other unjust assailant. ”

“ But can He be pleased with us if we thwart His designs; if we, His noblest works on earth, instead of adding to the universal harmony of His creation, make monsters of ourselves, moral blots upon the beautiful face of His world? It were idle for Him to give us the knowledge of His will and then to stand by and let us disfigure His fairest designs; to bid us do what is right, and then let us do wrong without exacting redress or atonement. If He is wise, He must not only lay down the law, but He must also enforce it; He must make it our highest interest to keep His law, to do the right ”

“ You sit in your easy-chairs, you dogmatize in your lecture-rooms, you wield your pens: it all looks well on paper; you write exceedingly well; there never was an age in which there was better writing, logical, nervous, eloquent, and pure,—go and carry it out in the world. Take your first principles, of which you are so proud, into the crowded streets of our cities, into the formidable classes which make up the bulk of our population: try to work society by them. ”

“ In fact, all history testifies that the true civilization of any race or country rises or falls with the restraints imposed on the passion of lust; no polygamous nation has ever been more than half-civilized. The greatness of Rome and Greece decayed when the laws of social purity declined; and in our own day the immorality of what is called “the social evil” is the darkest stain on modern civilization.
And what we say of civilization or social soundness, the soundness of the body politic, applies in a great measure to individual soundness, the health of every person’s mind and body. ”

“ In this connection of regard for the poor, allow me also to call your attention, gentlemen, to a point which students of medicine are apt to forget at times, and yet which both God and the world require you ever to bear in mind: it is the respect which every man owes to the mortal remains of a departed brother. I do not know that a people has ever been found, even among barbarians, who did not honor the bodies of their dead. For the good of humanity, dead bodies may at times be subjected to the dissecting-knife, but never to wanton indignities. ”

“ For by nature all men are equal, and therefore one is not obliged, under ordinary circumstances, to work for the good of another. If he renders a service to a neighbor, equity or equality requires that the neighbor shall do a proportionate good to him in return. Thus the equality of men is the basis of their right to compensation for services rendered. The physician’s right to his fee is therefore a natural right, and on his patient rests the natural duty of paying it. Not to pay the Doctor’s bill is as unjust as any other manner of stealing. ”

“ To generate a race of young barbarians is certainly not the purpose of the sexual relations. Children must not be begotten unless they can be properly raised, in a manner worthy of their noble destiny. Now, it is only in the married state, in the family or domestic society, that they can be thus educated. They need the tender hand of a mother to supply their material wants; they need the manly care of a devoted father to provide the necessaries of life, his firm hand to break their wanton wills, and his wise direction to set them well on the road to temporal and eternal happiness. ”

“ It is well to remind you thus, gentlemen, at the opening of this new year of studies, of the excellence of your intended profession; for you cannot help seeing that a science so noble should be studied for a noble purpose. In this age of utilitarianism, it is, alas! too common an evil that the most excellent objects are coveted exclusively for lower purposes. True, no one can find fault with a physician for making his profession, no matter how exalted, a means of earning an honest livelihood and a decent competency ”

“ I have a right to my life. I may, therefore, protect it against him; and, for that purpose, I may use all lawful means. A lawful means is one that violates no law, one that I may use without giving any one reasonable ground of complaint. Suppose I have no other means to protect my life than by shooting my aggressor; has he a right to complain of my conduct if I try to do so? No, because he forces me to the act; he forces me to choose between my life and his. Good order is not violated if I prefer my own life: well-ordered charity begins at home. ”

“ You will please notice, gentlemen, that when this distinguished Doctor said, “We are not now justified in destroying a living child,” he was speaking from a medical standpoint, and meant to say that such destruction is now scientifically unjustifiable, is a blunder in surgery. From a moral point of view it is not only now, but it was always, unjustifiable to slay a child as a means to save the mother’s life; a good end cannot justify an evil means, is a truth that cannot be too emphatically inculcated. ”

“ The physician, indeed, is one of the most highly valued benefactors of mankind. Therefore he has ever been held in honor among his fellow-men; by barbarous tribes he is looked upon as a connecting link between the visible and the invisible world; in the most civilized communities, from the time of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, to the present day, he has been held in deeper veneration than the members of almost any other profession ”

“ Gentlemen, let no one trifle with the principles of Ethics and Jurisprudence; human society cannot get along without them. Morality is the heart of civilization: its principles are the life-blood, which it sends forth to feed and warm and strengthen and beautify all the organs of its earthly frame. ”

“ One principle of science throws much light on the nature of all those performances, namely, that every effect must have a proportionate cause. When the effect shows knowledge and design, the cause must be intelligent. Now many of these marvels evidently show knowledge and design; therefore the cause is certainly intelligent.
A table cannot understand and answer questions; it cannot move at a person’s bidding. A medium cannot speak in a language he has never learned, nor know the secret ailment of a patient far away, nor prescribe the proper remedies without knowledge of medicine. ”

“ The Creator, too, as reason teaches, has a clear right to the child’s life; that child may answer a very special purpose of Providence. But whether it will or not, God is the supreme and the only Master of life and death, and He has laid down the strict prohibition, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Now comes the plea of self-defence against an unjust aggressor. If the child is such, if it unjustly attacks its mother’s life, then she can destroy it to save herself, and her physician can aid the innocent against the guilty party. But can it be proved that the infant is an unjust aggressor in the case? ”

“ Now we go deeper in our studies, and appeal from human legislation to the first principles of right and wrong, as Jurisprudence ought to do; and, in consequence, some medical operations which used to be tolerated, or even approved, by many in the profession are at present absolutely and justly condemned. The learned physician these days is no longer afraid to face the moral philosopher; there is no longer any estrangement between Ethics and Medical Practice. Medicine, sent from Heaven to be an angel of mercy to man, is now ever faithful to its beneficent mission ”

“ By craniotomists this reason or excuse is frequently given with much sentimentality to justify the killing of the child. The child, they say, has no social value, the mother is the idol of her husband, the pride of the household, often an ornament to society, the mother of living or possible children. Therefore, her life is more valuable than that of the unborn child. But who is to be the judge of the value of life? Were not Scipio Africanus, Manlius, was not Cæsar, from whom the very name of the operation, delivered by section from their mother’s womb? ”

“ Science should frown down all imposture and superstition. Medicine in particular, intended to be one of the choicest blessings of God to man, should not degrade its noble profession by pandering to a vulgar greed for morbid excitement. Not only will you personally keep aloof from all that is allied to quackery and imposture, but in after-life your powerful influence for good will be most efficient in guarding others against such evils, and even perhaps in withdrawing from such associations those who have already got entangled in dangerous snares. ”

“ So far we have chiefly considered murder as a violation of man’s right to his life. We must now turn our attention to God’s right, which the murderer violates. It may indeed happen that a man willingly resigns his right to live, that he is tired of life, and longs and implores for some one to take it away. Can you then do it? You cannot. His life does not belong to him alone, but to God also, and to God principally; if you destroy it, you violate God’s right, and you will have to settle with Him. God wills this man to live and serve Him, if it were only by patient endurance of his sufferings. ”

“ Your idea of a book is a universal idea, which stands for any book, no matter of what shape or size. Every phantasm, or brain-picture, is a representation which presents its object as having a definite shape or size, while your idea of a book ignores any shape or size. And yet, when your intellect conceives a book, your imagination will picture some particular form of book. If your brain became so affected by disease as to be unfit for the formation and retention of the proper phantasms, then your intellect either would not work at all or it would work abnormally ”

“ But as the imagination, an organic power, can be disorganized by an affection of the brain, and by delusion deceive the intellect, thus producing mental insanity, similarly I fully admit that a man’s passions, which are also organic powers, common to us and to brute animals, can become disordered by bodily disease; and the passions, when excited, will strive to drag along the consent of the will, as we all experience. A man whose passions are abnormally influenced by bodily disease, so that he is constantly inclined to act very unreasonably, may well be called morally insane. ”

“ How sad is the lot of those—and they are many—who undertook in early years of married life to prescribe a narrow limit to the number of their children; they had one or two, and they would have no more, and for this purpose criminally thwarted the purposes of nature. Then comes death and snatches away their solitary consolation: and they spend their old age childless and loveless, in mutual upbraidings and unavailing regrets. ”

“ No Doctor has the right to attempt the management of a case of which he has not at least ordinary knowledge. In matters of special difficulty, he is obliged to use special prudence or ask for special consultation. The courts justly hold him responsible for any serious injury resulting from gross ignorance; in such cases they will condemn him for malpractice. I would here remark that, in an age in which the science of medicine is making such rapid progress, every Doctor is in duty bound to keep up with the improvements made in general practice, and in his own specialty if he has one. ”