Gentlemen, so far I have explained the duties which the physician has in
common with all other men, and which arise directly from the natural law
independently of any civil legislation. The natural law requires the
Doctor to respect the life of the unborn child, thus forbidding
craniotomy and abortion. It also obliges him to protect his patients
from the baneful effects of venereal excesses. Over these matters human
law has no control, except that it may and ought to punish such overt
acts as violate the rights of individuals, or seriously endanger the
public welfare.
We shall now consider the physician's natural rights and duties in
regard to matters which civil and criminal legislation justly undertake
to regulate. One of the chief functions of civil authority is to provide
for the observance of contracts. Now, the physician in his professional
services acts under a double contract, a contract with the state and a
contract with his individual patients. By accepting his diploma of M.D.
from the college faculty, and indirectly from the civil authority, he
makes at least an implicit contract with the state, by which he receives
certain rights conditioned on his performance of certain duties. In
offering his services to the public, he also makes an implicit contract
with his patients by which he obliges himself to render them his
professional services with ordinary skill and diligence on condition of
receiving from them the usual compensation.