nt of the sick. But this assumption is only an
assumption. There are physicians who will lie, and there are
physicians who will not lie; and in each case the individual physician
acts in this matter on his own responsibility: he has no code of
professional ethics justifying a lie on his part as a physician, when
it would not be justifiable in a layman.

Concealment of that which he has a right to conceal, is as clearly a
duty, in many a case, on the part of a physician, as it is on the
part of any other person; but falsehood is never a legitimate, or an
allowable, means of concealment by physician or layman. As has been
already stated[1] if it be once known that a physician is ever ready
to speak words of cheer to a patient falsely, that physician is
measurably deprived of the possibility of encouraging a patient by
truthful words of cheer when he would gladly do so. And physicians
would probably be surprised to know how generally they are estimated
in the community according to their reputation in this matter. One is
known as a man who will speak falsely to his patients as a means of
encouragement, while another is known as a man who will be cautious
about giving his opinion concerning chances of recovery, but who will
never tell an untruth to a patient or to any other person. But in no
case can a physician claim that the ethics of his profession as a
profession justify him in a falsehood to any person--patient or no
patient.

[Footnote 1: See p. 75 f., _supra_.]

A distinguished professor in one of the prominent medical colleges of
this country, in denying the claim of a writer on ethics that it may
become the duty of a physician to deceive his patient as a means of
curing him, declares that a physician acting on this theory "will not
be found in accord with the best and the highest medical teaching of
the present day;" and he goes on to say:[1] "In my profession to-day,
the truth properly presented, we have found, carries with it a
convincing and adjusting element which does not fail to bring the
afflicted person to that condition of mind that is most conducive
to his physical well-being, and let me add also, I believe, to his
spiritual welfare." This statement was made in connection with the
declaration that in the hospital which was in his charge it is not
deemed right or wise to deceive a patient as to any operation to be
performed upon him. And there are other well-known physicians who
testify similarly as to