Neither for love nor money: why doctors must not kill.

These difficult questions, now much diseussed, are in fact very old, indeed as old as the beginnings of Western medieine. According to an ancient Greek myth, the goddess Athena procured two powerful drugs in the form of blood taken from the Gorgon Medusa, the blood drawn from her left side providing protection against death, that from her right side a deadly poison. According to one version of the myth, Athena gave to Aselepius, the revered founder of medicine, vials of both drugs; according to the other version, she gave him only the life-preserving drug, reserving the power of destruction for herself. There is force in both aeeounts: the first attests to