Refusal to help means for most people declining to accept the duty to treat. The reasons for refusing to help and how we think about these reasons from an ethical and professional viewpoint are outlined by considering ethical principles, an historical perspective, the law, societal contracts, medicine as a moral enterprise, professional codes, a physician's personal beliefs, reasons for refusin...

Paracelsus very likely studied the arts at the University of Vienna and medicine at the University of Ferrara in Italy. He recognised the relative development standstill of Middle Ages. He had the courage of his convictions and burned the works of Galen and Avicenna in public in 1527, as town physician of Basel. He denounced ancients in harsh terms, refusing to accept their theory of humours. H...