PAY FOR DOCTORS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 5

PAY FOR DOCTORS

THE ANCIENT PRACTICES

The discussion and protest and argument concerning .an adequate payment for doctors who will, work under the health insurance law might be settled amicably if the authorities look into the origin and growth of the physicians' art and the apothecaries' qualifications, says the "Melbourne Age." It is not the first time by a long way that medical men have been called to service of this kind, though many people think that it is = an extremely interfering piece of socialistic —or communistic according to the view of the person inflicted with it —legislation. There are few references to the payments to be made, but, according to ah old regulation, dating 1440, made by the police at Basle, it was ordered that a public physician should be established in every German imperial city, with the allowance of an ecclesiastic benefice or canonry. in order that he might exercise his art gratis. This proviso was added: "What costly things people may wish to have from the apothecary's shop they must pay for." A search among ecclesiastical documents would reveal the emoluments. It might be estimated on the amount King Edward 111 in the year 1345 gave as a pension to Coursus de Gangeland ' (sixpence, a day) for taking care and attending to his Majesty during his illness in Scotland. Gangeland was an apothecary in London. The grocers and barbers originally sold the medicines prescribed by the physicians. Nor were these apothecaries free from the laws demanding free treatment and free goods. In 1500 Syriax Horn was appointed an apothecary at Stuttgart, and he was -.obliged to swear that he would supply Government and^ all public officers as well as subjects with medicines. Once a year his shop was visited to see whether it was conducted according to regulations, and medicines sold at the fixed prices. The poor were supplied with whatever medicines they stood in need of. v