Medical code forbidding mercy deaths held rigid: Navy doctor explains reasons for poilcy

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By PODINE SCHOENBERGEE
Today's medical code forbids rnercy killings.
A physician, who practiced euthanasia, either by stopping the medicine needed to prolong liie or by taking steps to put aii incurable patient out of his misery, would be barred from medical practice.
In explaining this, Captain George N. Raines, U.S. Navy Medical Corps, said even if euthanasia was permitted, no doctor worth his salt would agree to such a procedure.
"In these days of medical discovery, a disease, regarded as hopeless, might become curable," added the Navy doctor, a featured speaker at the New Orleans Graduate Medical Assembly, now in session at the Roosevelt hotel.
Captain Raines said, "Sup* pose I had a so-called incurable patient and decided to put him out of his misery?"
"Then suppose the very next day someone would up with a cure?" he added. "How do you think I'd feel?"
Captain Raines said, "Actually the medical code is far more rigid in this respect than the religious code."
"The Catholic church, for instance, does not require using exterior means to prolong life," added the physician, who is head of the neuropsychiatry branch of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for the U.S. Navy.
Captain Raines said "if a hopelessly ill patient is being fed by a tube and strangles, an emergency tracheactomy is needed to save his life."
"Well the church,does not require that this tracheactomy be performed," the Navy psychiatrist added, "but medical ethics does. Every means must be taken to sustain life. Under no circumstances should treatment be stopped."
Captain Raines said he believes a patient has a right to know he is going to die; that, if a patient wants to know^ it is the moral obligation of the doctor to tell him the truth.
"As a matter of fact, the Catholic church charges the physician with seeing to this so that Extreme Unction can be administered prior to death," added the psychiatrist, who is president    of    the    American
jBoard of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Captain Raines is one of 19 top medical experts, who are addressing the convention, which is attracting more than 1000 delegates.
Other speakers expressed the belief that:
1.  Cures   are   being   effected in only 50 per cent of the cases | of cancer of the cervix.
2.  The only way to keep from! getting bald is to choose non-j bald ancestors.
3.  The acid indigestion, from1 which you're suffering, may be
I caused by a hiatus hernia.
4.  Newer methods of treating coronary  occlusion  are  resulting in a lower death rate.
A Chicago dermatologist, who is somewhat bald himself, said in   medieval   times,   baldness was regarded as an asset. 'Sign  of  Thinker'
"At first, of course, baldness  ' was   a   curse,"   explained   Dr.   ! Herbert  Rattner,   chairman   of the department of dermatology at the Northwestern university  [ medical   school.    "Then   some medieval public relations  man   ' got busy. Soon baldness began  ; to be regarded as an asset, as  ( a sign of a thinker, as symbolic of  a  man of substance.    But when the number of bald-headed people began to increase, they I, had to give up this idea. There I were too many thinkers."
Dr. Rattner said baldness is usually inherited from both sides of the family; that the only way a man can prevent it is by choosing nonbald ancestors.
"When these hair-growing institutes show you these 'before' | and 'after' pictures," he added, I "it isn't real baldness.  It's  a disease   known   as   alopecia areata. In this disease, the hair: regrows of its own accord. The hair-gorwing institutes, of course, may hasten the process through massage."
The low rate of cures in cancer of the cervix was deplored Tuesday by Dr. Lawrence M. Randall, Rochester, Minn, gynecologist.
'We only cure 50 per cent of them," said Dr. Randall, who is professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Minnesota, Mayo Foundation Graduate School. "I think we could do better than this if every woman of the nation would have a thorough pelvic examination once a year. And I cannot too strongly emphasize the need that it be thorough. All the pelvic organs should be examined. So often an examination of this type is limited to the cancer smear test. A thorough examination may • reveal chronic infections 3r irritations, which if cleared up immediately would definitely lessen the chances of cancer." Dr. Charles A. Flood, of New York city, told the delegates that many people who suffer from so-called acid indigestion, really have «i hiatus hernia. He said in this type of hernia, the lydrochloric acid of the stom-i ach tends to flow back into the1 esophagus, irritating the mucous membrane of the esophagus. If the condition is mild, he
idded, the symptoms will prob-ibly include heartburn and acid ndigestion.
"But if the condition is more; severe, there will be complica-:ions such as bleeding and difficulty in swallowing," said the physician, who is associate pro-iessor of clinical medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Flood said presence of ;he hernia can usually be deleted with the aid of X-rays, preferably taken with the patient's head lower than his feet, [n serious cases, he added, this is sometimes followed up by passing an esophagoscope through the mouth. The physician said treatment consists of the use of alkalis, of sleeping with the head raised, and of following an ulcer-type diet. If trouble in swallowing is due to inflamation at the lower end of the esophagus, he added, an ulcer or stricture may result from the acid irritation. In such cases, the patients may be helped with a treatment, which includes the use of tubes. The visiting physician said only in some cases is surgery advocated.
A previously, unrecognized disease, which he himself helped to discover, was described at convention sessions by Dr. Bayard T. Horton, associate professor-emeritus of the University of Minnesota Mayo Foundation Graduate school.
Dr. Horton said the disease is called temporal arteritis; that i1 is characterized by swelling oi the artery of the temple; thai it sometimes results in double vision or in blindness; that it is a disease which frequently goes unrecognized.
"The early symptoms give no! clue," added the physician, "but, if the patient is advanced in years, and suffers from headaches, difficulty in chewing and symptoms of general infection, the doctor should be alert to the possibilities of temporal arteritis. Cortisone is being used effectively as a treatment and is proving quite a boon in helping to prevent blindness."
A Dallas, Tex., cardiologist looked into the future Tuesday and decided that things will be much brighter for the heart patient.
"Newer methods being used in the treatment of coronary occlusion, often referred to as I "the Eisenhower disease," are bringing about a marked reduction in death rate from a well mown killer," said Dr. Carleton B. Chapman, professor of medicine at the Southwestern Medical School of the University of Texas.
Newer Methods Told
Dr. Chapman said the newer methods include giving the patient oxygen under pressure and | use of new drugs such as j tiorepinephrine and newer forms I of digitalis to tide him over. Ihe cardiologist said no one knew for sure what causes a! coronary, although it may be j related to excessive dietary intake, either of fats or of calories. And no one, so far, knows iow to prevent it, he added. But if a patient feels a severe and persistent pain in the front of
lis   chest,   a  pain  which   may j
i
radiate to neck and arm, he should notify a doctor immediately,                                         j Local physicians presiding at Tuesday's sessions included Dr. Boni J. De Laureal, Homer J. Dupuy, George E. Burch, Jack £. Strang, MurreJH. Kaplan, George H. Hauser, Nicholas J. Chetta, Richard H. Corales Jr.. Rufus H. Alldredge, Walter F.* Becker, Barrett Kennedy and Robert C. Kelleher. Dr. V. Medd Henlngton is programs chairman for the convention.