You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Vienna, February 6, 1899
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear Wilhelm,
First crossing! We had the feeling you express at about the same time.
You will not get so quickly from medicine to industrial enterprises (sugar factory); the public will see to that. I hear it with great pleasure. You will certainly have to tell me about Warsaw.
I do not see cases of the kind you ask about, simply because I see none but my daily patients, upon whom I shall indeed manage to live for quite a long, first period of work.1 They provide me with what is typical; I hope I shall no longer need to trouble myself about the corollaries. I do remember cases of tuberculosis accompanied by anxiety, even dating back to earlier periods, but they did not leave any special impression on me.
Poor Schiff as you present him reminds me of one of the most annoying aspects of our modern medicine. The art of deceiving a patient is certainly not very necessary. But what has the individual come to, how negligible must be the influence of the religion of science, which is supposed to have taken the place of the old religion, if one no longer dares to disclose that it is this or that man's turn to die? Breuer's spirit lives in these arts. The Christian at least has the last sacrament administered a few hours beforehand. And Shakespeare says, “Thou owest Nature a death.”2 I hope that when