Scientific Method in Biology/Chapter 2
II.
CONSCIENCE IN MEDICINE.
EVERY intelligent member of the medical profession will certainly recognise the special value of human conscience in the profession.
The problems which are involved in the practice of the beneficent art, the absolute reliance which the anxious patient is compelled to place in his physician, the helplessness of the poor, who form so large a majority of those who need medical aid, and who are without the defences of wealth and station, show the need of keen moral sense, as well as intelligence, in those who practise the art of medicine.
The very discoveries of medical science enforce this necessity; for the possibility of abuse in the employment of such beneficent agents as anæsthetics and hypnotism, by incompetent or conscienceless operators, is a very serious fact.
The suicides that have taken place after so-called 'successful' operations (as, for example, the production of artificial anus), the pathetic exclamation of poor Montagu Williams, that his brilliant operation had ruined his constitution, and the reckless castrations proved by Dr. Chanu in France, are facts, to be seriously weighed by medical conscience, showing the necessity of restraining too eager experiment.
This special responsibility of the medical profession to society is greatly increased by the fact that the training of a very large section of our intelligent youth during the important years of early manhood rests upon them. The moral as well as intellectual influence exerted by those who guide the college, the hospital, the dispensary, and post-graduate classes, will mould the future action of one of the most influential portions of the community, those, viz., on whom the health of the nation chiefly rests.
Now, whilst all recognise the need of the trained and skilful care of a nation's health, and perceive also that rightly organized medical schools and hospitals are of great value in educating our health guardians, how is it that a profound distrust of these institutions has grown up in our midst; that the support of hospitals becomes increasingly difficult, whilst at the same time the sentiment of benevolence and desire to help the poor is constantly extended?
How is it that the beneficent and necessary art of medicine no longer commands that respect and confidence which its essential character as part of our social institutions would seem to demand?
The answer to these serious questions involves both moral and intellectual considerations. These problems have arisen from failure to perceive that in education moral and intellectual activity cannot be advantageously divorced, or that one portion of our complex nature can be beneficially developed whilst other portions are entirely ignored or injured.
Our medical schools, whilst sharpening the intellectual faculties of their students, are not careful that their modes of teaching bring with them no deterioration of that important faculty of their students, the moral sense. As conscience or the moral sense is unequally developed in human beings, but is indispensable to the physician in his relations with patients, any apathy or negligence in this respect by the trainers of youth may become a national danger.