Excerpt from Physicians' and Dentists' Directory of the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, 1903: Comprising List of Physicians and Surgeons and Dentists, Arranged Alphabetically by Post-Offices, With Population and Location

Sect. 4. A physician should not be forward to make gloomy prognostications, because they savor of empiricism, by magnify ing the importance of his services in the treatment or cure of the disease. But he should not fail, on proper occasions, to give to the friends or the patient timely notice of danger, when it really occurs; and even to the patient himself, it absolutely necessary. This omoe, however, is so peculiarly alarming, when executed by him, that it ought to he declined whenever it can be assigned to any other person of sufficient judgment and delicacy. For the phy sician should be the minister of hope and comfort to the sick; that by such cordials to the drooping spirit he may smooth the bed of death, revive expiring life, and counteract the depressing influ ence of those maladies which often disturb the tranquillity of the most resigned in their last moments. The life of a sick person can be shortened. Not only by the acts. But also by the words or the manner of a physician. It is, therefore, a sacred duty to guard himself carefully in this respect, and to avoid all things which have a. Tendency to discourage the patient and depress the spirits.

Sect. 5. A physician ought not to abandon a patient because the case is deemed incurable; for his attendance may continue to be highly useful to the patient, and comforting to the relatives around him, even in the last period of fatal malady, by alleviating pain and other symptoms, and by soothing mental anguish. To decline attendance under such circumstances would be sacrificing to fanciful delicacy and mistaken liberality that moral duty which is independent of and far superior to all pecuniary consideration.

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