Moral Principles and Medical Practice | Page 8

he happens to be unworthy of his vocation, he may be guilty of the most outrageous wrongs.
The highest interests of earth are in his hands. If he is not conscientious, or if he lets himself be carried about by every wind of modern speculations, he can readily persuade himself that a measure is lawful because it is presently expedient, that acts can justly be performed because the courts do not punish them; and thus he will often violate the most sacred rights of his patients or of their relatives. Who has more frequent opportunities than a licentious Doctor to seduce the innocent, to pander to the passions of the guilty, to play into the hands of greedy heirs, who may be most willing to pay him for his services? No one can do it more safely, as far as human tribunals are concerned. As a matter of fact, many, all over this land and other lands, are often guilty of prostituting their noble profession to the vilest uses. The evil becomes all the more serious when false doctrines are insinuated, or publicly advocated, which throw doubt upon the most sacred principles of morality. True, the sounder and by far the larger portion of medical men protest against these false teachings by their own conduct at least; but it very frequently happens that the honest man is less zealous in his advocacy of what is right than is the propagandist of bold speculations and dangerous new theories in the spreading of what is pernicious.
The effect thus produced upon many minds is to shake their convictions, to say the least; and I need not tell you, gentlemen, that weak convictions are not likely to be proof against violent and repeated temptations. 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? Especially if he can once make himself believe that, for all he knows, he may be nothing more than a rather curiously developed lump of matter, which is to lose forever all consciousness in death. Why should he not get rid of any other evolved lump of matter if it stand in the way of his present or prospective happiness? Those are dangerous men who inculcate such theories; it were a sad day for the medical profession and for the world at large if ever they found much countenance among physicians. Society cannot do without the higher law; this law is to be studied in Medical Jurisprudence.
It is my direct object, gentlemen, to explain this law to you in its most important bearings, and thus to lay before you the chief duties of your profession. The principal reason why I have undertaken to deliver this course of lectures--the chief reason, in fact, why the Creighton University has assumed the management of this Medical College--is that we wish to provide for the West, as far as we are able, a goodly supply of conscientious physicians, who shall be as faithful and reliable as they will be able and well informed; whose solid principles and sterling integrity shall be guarantees of upright and virtuous conduct.
That this task of mine may be successfully accomplished, I will endeavor to answer all difficulties and objections that you may propose. I will never consider it a want of respect to me as your professor if you will urge your questions till I have answered them to your full satisfaction. On the contrary, I request you to be very inquisitive; and I will be best pleased with those who show themselves the most ready to point out those difficulties, connected with my lectures, which seem to require further answers and explanations.

LECTURE II.
CRANIOTOMY.
Gentlemen:--In my first lecture I proved to you the existence and the binding power of a higher law than that of human legislators, namely, of the eternal law, which, in His wisdom, the Creator, if He created at all, could not help enacting, and which He is bound by His wisdom and justice to enforce upon mankind.
We are next to consider what are the duties which that higher law imposes upon the physician. In this present lecture I will confine myself to one duty, that of respect for human life.
A duty is a bond imposed on our will. God, as I remarked before, imposes such bonds, and by