AUSTRIAN DOCTORS.

Evening Star, Issue 12768, 22 March 1906, Page 1

AUSTRIAN DOCTORS.

A STRUGGLE WITH POVERTY. ‘ i °X. a London parish doctor is not (* ays the Vienna correspondent of ( The t 2l , LCS )i perhaps, a very enviable one, but Uiat ot his country cousin in Austria is distinctly miserable. These gentlemen, as I nav 6 already informed you, have issued a circular calling on all numbers of their body to start a passive resistance movement unless seme improvement in their treatment is introduced. The total number of the comnumal and parish doctors in Lower Austria is 450, out of whom only 340 are able to keep themselves respectably in house, food, and clothmg. Only 170 arc in a position to educate their children, and 145 are only able to live at -all by the extra work of themselves or their wives. That is to say, that the doctors take up insurance agencies, or wine and other commission business, and the wives do nceclerwork, give lessons, or act as postmistresses or manageresses in shops. More thau half of them are compelled to send out their children to work—the boys on odd jobs, and the girls as seamstresses, ‘nursemaids, ov servants. Provision for old age and sickness is impossible, except in the case of. some ninety, who possess private means. This deplorable.. situation is comprehensible when the salary is taken into consideration. The whole budget set apart for the doctors is 200,000 kronen a year, which works out at about £25 a . year each. Where some get more, . others necessarily receive less. The fees ate wretched, and it is against these that the “passive resistance” is proposed. For vaccination the doctor receives about 2d and for that he has nob only to vaccinate’ but to give two certificates, and to watch the child for eight days. For death certificates he docs not even get the English shilling nor for the notification of infectious diseases all of which work he has to do for his magi nificent salary. Ho now proposes to strike, and in the case of infectious disease he wili merely state that it is a case of sore .throat, or eruption, requiring' further diagnosis. If the threat is carried out it may easily be the cause of grave public danger.* Suppose, for instance, that in one of the populous suburbs of Vienna an epidemic of smallpox or diphtheria were to break but, and were nob to be duly notified, the consequences might be most deplorable. ~ , , Nevertheless, the cbmmunal committees ' decline id take any measures for remedying this state of things, partially 'under the influence of a widespread dislike of many of the members to vaccination, and partially

from want of ‘ funds. They also rely on flu leilv « «iy case of really epidOTuc disease unnotified, and declarethL &r for vaccina-.■“•W’-PWMh doctors will not do the P lent y '°f charlatans and r^ CS i Wh ° . I^ l, J and if ti>e supply of regularly-cpaljfied medical men fahs/rt will* only remain, to allow anybody Who 1?W to p rootage, as 15 the case in Germany and America. The remedy might, perhaps, b» than tbs evil, though probably there is not much more harm done by quacks in Germany, than by incompetent and ■ poorlypaid.parish, doctors in Austria.