RT Journal
A1 McCue JD, Cohen LM
T1 FReud's physician-assisted death
JF Archives of Internal Medicine
JO Archives of Internal Medicine
YR 1999
FD July 26
VO 159
IS 14
SP 1521
OP 1525
DO 10.1001/archinte.159.14.1521
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinte.159.14.1521
AB 
IN 1923, Sigmund Freud, an academic neurologist and the first psychoanalyst, was found to have a malignant oral epithelioma. By 1939, at the age of 83 years, he had endured for many years the necessity of using crude prostheses simply to talk and eat, terrible suffering from more than 30 surgical procedures, repeated courses of primitive x-ray and radium therapy, and disruptions to his life from Nazi persecution. In spite of the suffering from his chronic illness and disrupted professional life, his record of productivity during those 16 years was impressive. When his pain was no longer bearable, however, he asked his physician to honor a long-standing agreement to assist him in preemption of certain death from cancer.1