THE PRINCE'S JOKE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 148, 23 June 1923, Page 5

THE PRINCE'S JOKE.

, MEDICINE NOT MONET. WHY CHARLES H. DIED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 16. At the- 156 th anniversary dinner of the Medical Society of London last night, the Prince of Wales presided and made a more than usually felicitous speech. It is a common boast of members of the medical profession, said H.R.H., that they practice the oldest science known to man. I do not think there can be any doubt about it —it is almost impossible to imagine an age so fortunate as to need no doctors. I expect the only reason why there were no doctors in the Garden of Eden was that Eve obviously knew the familiar prescription, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." I urn half afraid if I speak lightly of the medical profession the members of this society may retaliate at the end of the "evening by drawing up some terrifying diagnosis which will keep mc in bed for the rest of the summer. However, I am not seriously alarmed. As one who has had a long experience of the kindness of heart characteristic of members of your profession, I should bo ungenerous if I did not feel thoroughly at home in such company as this. Nobody who has had as much to do with hospitals, military and civil, as I have can have failed to discover that there is something about the art of healing which has a particularly good effect on those who practice it; whether ho is in a regimental mess or a ship's wardroom, whether he is a hospital man or a general practitioner, the doctor is always a man of many friends. And talking to the G.P. I should like, in passing, to pay him a special tribute. On him. in the long run, the health and well-being of the community depend, and in his hands to a great extent is the honour of your profession ac a whole. The origins of medicine, a.s I have already suggested, are lost in the mists of antiquity. But there is one aspect of it which appeals to mc specially, and to which I cannot help alluding—l mean <the close connection between such a society as this and a national institution which I am always proud to help to the best of my ability—our national system. The society was founded in 1773. and you will find that at just about this same date there sprung up in London a cluster of hospitals, whose names are household words to-day—Guy's, St. George's, the London, the Middlesex, Queen Charlotte's, and a number of oth<-«. It is this point which I want to . mphasise to-night, that throughout this period the growth of your society and others like it, moves on parallel lines with the growth of the modern hospital system

as we know it to-day. Medical research is valueless to humanity unless humanity can benefit practically by it; brilliant doctors like Lister would labour in vain unless there was some medium through which the fruits of their labour could be broadcasted, so to speak, to the great mass of the sick and the suffering among the community. The hospitals are such a medium. They are at once the universities and the workshops of medical science—4he centres to which come both the doctor to get further technical knowledge and the patient to get his share of its practical application. Without the hospitals, medical science would be. comparatively speaking, a barren thing. Consequently, the value of such a society as this, froma national point of view, depends very largely on its relationship to the hospital system, and by that the public judges it. Your society has never failed to bo to it a loyal and helpful friend. Directly and indirectly the society, as a whole, and its individual members, have proved it many times over. It is an institution to which everyone who has benefited by our hospitals, and everyone who ' wants to help them, must always be ' grateful. Welcoming three distinguished physicians from the United States the 1 Prince quite unwittingly raised the ! heartiest and largest outburst of • laughter of the evening. "A country." he said, "to which we owe a great ' deal." A little nonplussed for a moment I by the roar of laughter, the Prince " smilingly joined in the joke, remarking ' with simulated severity at the end of 1 it: "We are talking about medicine, ! not about money."' (Cheers.) Being > a fellow guest with the visitors from " America he could not. he explained. weleomp them to that gathering, "but . as a. sincere friend of America I weli come them to our country." t "A few years aco." said Mr. Lloyd ' Oeorge, proposing "Medicine," "it would I hnvp been with fear and trepidation I that T would have ventured to address i a gathering of medical men" (Laughter at his allusion to the time when in the 1 teeth of the whole profession he introi duecd insurance and the panel system f of treatment). But he spoke now with t more confidence in coupling the toast - with one of its most distinguished representatives—Lord Dawson. He laid - stress on the importance of giving at- > tention to the housing of the people. r> Lord Dawson, of Perm. who presided, > is of course a distinguished physician, i who lias in turn been physician to the Into King Edward, and to the present t King, mnde an allusion to the days of the Kins's Evil, humorously contrasting the remedies of the roynl touch with c the severer methods of the healing art 1 in early times. "Fourteen doctors." he 5 ox-claimed, "by the bedside of Charles j Tf. You can have too much of a good . thing. (Laughter.) The- result was inevitable." (Laughter.) y The Royal touch, he said, still lived. r l> was the human touch at the service , alike of the individual and the body . nnlitic. Tt was the stenius for joy and fellowship. (Cheers.) t ..