San Francisco Call, Volume 80, Number 76, 15 August 1896 — "WOULD BE HUMANE." [CHAPTER]

"WOULD BE HUMANE."

Dr. W. S. Thorn said : "I approve of Rev. Dr. "Wendte's position. Indeed I was about to write and tell him so. When persons are ill of incurable diseases and are certain to endure a long period of agony without hope of any. relief excepting through death and are of sound mind and request to die, it would be Humane to help them out of their pain. When an animal is badly injured it is humanely dispatched, and we know that this is merciful. There are human beings who would prefer to endure agony, such perhaps as the martyrs have suffered. That is well. I would not approve of bringing relief by death to any excepting those who request it, and their cases should be passed upon by a commission, which need not necessarily be composed entirely of physicians. "I have in mind one case where a cultivated woman, who was suffering hopelessly, appealed to rue to put morphine where she could reach it, that she might die. 'I will not ask you to give it to me,' she said, 'but only place it where I can reach it. 1 I refused her and told her that if I did as she requested I would be, in fact, a murderer — accessory before the fact.

But I favor the proposition advocated by Rev. Dr. Wendte and consider it to be humane."