OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES ON TELLING THE PATIENT THE WHOLE TRUTH

Abstract

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), in an address delivered to the graduating class of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College on March 2, 1871, had this to say about telling all the truth to patients1: Your patient has no more right to all the truth than he has to all the medicine in your saddle-bags, if you carry that kind of cartridge-box for the ammunition that slays disease. He should get only just so much as is good for him. I have seen a physician examining a patient's chest stop all at once, as he brought out a particular sound with a tap on the collar-bone, in the attitude of a pointer who has just come on the scent or sight of a woodcock. You remember the Spartan boy, who, with unmoved countenance, hid the fox that was tearing his vitals beneath his mantle. What he could do in his own suffering you must learn to do for others on whose vital organs disease has fastened its devouring teeth. It is a terrible thing to take away hope, even earthly hope from a fellow-creature. Be very careful what names you let fall before your patient.