The profession of medicine : its study, and practice ; its duties, and rewards / by Charles West.

  • West, Charles, 1816-1898.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The profession of medicine : its study, and practice ; its duties, and rewards / by Charles West. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    which they would rather die than face. What, in such a case, are you to do? Are you to publish the fact that you were applied to by such a woman to help to get rid of her burden and her shame? You throw suspicion on her, but she denies your allegation. Or, farther, you examine her, and find that an attempt has been already made, though unsuccessfully, to procure abortion. Brouardel* quotes a case which occurred to M. Trebuchet, who, when sent for to a case of threatening abortion, discovered, on examina- tion, a wound of the os uteri, evidently made by some pointed instrument, an evidence of an attempt to bring about a miscarriage. M. Trebuchet concludes that the doctor is not bound to secrecy in this case, since the woman herself had not told him anything. Two distinguished lawyers, the Messrs. Dalloz, reply: We are not of this opinion, nor do we think that any one can seriously say that the woman confided nothing to the doctor when she allowed him to make an examination ; for, in so doing, she entrusted to him everything that he could learn by his investigations. The French kw French law, too, insists on this, that the doctor subject, is bound to keep secret, not only what he has been told in confidence, but all that he has found out for himself, and the inferences he has thence deduced. * Lid. cit, p. 12.