raten? 1904). Marcuse is strongly of opinion
that a physician who, allowing himself to be influenced
by moral, sociological, or other considerations,
neglects to recommend sexual intercourse when
he considers it desirable for the patient’s
health, is unworthy of his profession, and should
either give up medicine or send his patients to
other doctors. This attitude, though not
usually so emphatically stated, seems to be widely
accepted. Lederer goes even further when he states
(Monatsschrift fuer Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle
Hygiene, 1906, Heft 3) that it is the physician’s
duty in the case of a woman who is suffering from
her husband’s impotence, to advise her to have
intercourse with another man, adding that “whether
she does so with her husband’s consent is
no affair of the physician’s, for he is
not the guardian of morality, but the guardian of
health.” The physicians who publicly
take this attitude are, however, a small minority.
In England, so far as I am aware, no physician
of eminence has openly proclaimed the duty of the
doctor to advise sexual intercourse outside marriage,
although, it is scarcely necessary to add, in
England, as elsewhere, it happens that doctors,
including women doctors, from time to time privately
point out to their unmarried and even married patients,
that sexual intercourse would probably be beneficial.
The duty of the physician to recommend sexual intercourse has been denied as emphatically as it has been affirmed. Thus Eulenburg (Sexuale Neuropathie, p. 43), would by no means advise extra-conjugal relations to his patient; “such advice is quite outside the physician’s competence.” It is, of course, denied by those who regard sexual abstinence as always harmless, if not beneficial. But it is also denied by many who consider that, under some circumstances, sexual intercourse would do good.
Moll has especially, and on many occasions, discussed the duty of the physician in relation to the question of advising sexual intercourse outside marriage (e.g., in his comprehensive work, Aerztliche Ethik, 1902; also Zeitschrift fuer Aerztliche Fortbildung, 1905, Nos. 12-15; Mutterschutz, 1905, Heft 3; Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, vol. ii, Heft 8). At the outset Moll had been disposed to assert the right of the physician to recommend sexual intercourse under some circumstances; “so long as marriage is unduly delayed and sexual intercourse outside marriage exists,” he wrote (Die Contraere Sexualempfindung, second edition, p. 287), “so long, I think, we may use such intercourse therapeutically, provided that the rights of no third person (husband or wife) are injured.” In all his later writings, however, Moll ranges himself clearly and decisively on the opposite side. He considers that the physician has no right to overlook the possible results of his advice in inflicting venereal disease, or, in the case of a woman, pregnancy, on his patient,