A MILL FOR DOCTORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9307, 16 September 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MILL FOR DOCTORS.

DIPLOMAS GIVEN AFTER FOUR LESSONS. A man named Dr. Walter May Reid was arrested in New "X ork on July 24 for selling bogus diplomas conferring the title of M.D. upon persons utterly ignorant of medicine, and turning them loose on the world to destroy human lives. Dr. Reid is nob a sharp young schemer, bub a grey-haired, expert scholar, linguist, poeb, novelist, and a graduate of the Medical College of the University of New York. The doctor was entrapped by a reporter, who worked hard on the case, and finally caused his arrest. After four interviews with Dr. Reid, notwithstanding the reporter's frank confession that he was a complete ignoramous in respect to medicine, he received from his hands a diploma of the Preparatory Medical College of New York, certifying in Latin over the doctor's signature and an impressive red seal, that upon examination it had been proved that he was worthy to be received as a physician among physicians. The document falsely declared that he had studied medicine for three years, and that his final examination had been " regulated by the usual standard for the M.D. degree." This diploma, which, according to his assurance, carried with it the " minor degree of M.D.," was not given to aid the reporter in entering a regular medical college, but as a cloak under which he was to practice medicine in Ohio, and work ruin according to his own will. He taught the reporter how to write proscriptions, and the doctor indicated how he might avoid detection, warning him to shun any controversy with real physicians in Ohio for fear of the consequences. THE COURSE OF INSTRUCTION. Upon his first visit to the doctor the reporter-detective was told how he could have a diploma for 20d015., no matter what he knew or did not know about medicine. Ab the same time he was handed a book, "A Complete Compendium for Graduation in Medicine," written by the doctor himself. This he was expected to read through, and copy certain passages in a pocket-book. That was all the preparation required. The necessity for this was explained by the doctor, who said : " You can refer to ib when you have a case and are in doubt about any parts of the body." To make things secure, however, and make sure that the applicant would pass muster anywhere, the doctor added : " I wish you would borrow a copy of 'Gray's Anatomy' and locate the muscles and bones on'the plato 3. I like my students to know the muscles. There are only about forty. You need to know less than that, in fact. Before cutting into a patient you ought to know the more prominent parts of the body. If you should cub the smaller things by accident they don't count much, but by all means become familiar with the prominent muscles and arteries." There were several interviews and considerable correspondence between the doctor and the reporter, who was also called " doctor" by his instructor. In his last letter to the reporter Dr. Reid said: "A health officer in eaeh city supplies death certificates more or less identical with the enclosed. (He sent a blank death certificate of New York city.) When I say that the diagnosis of 40 per cent, of death certificates are guesses, hazarded on insufficient data, and are very often erroneous, you need not bo much afraid to hazard a guess also. Wishing you all success, I am, dear doctor, etc." Armed with his diploma, the reporter went to the police station, and one of the men who lias been filling the west of the United States with worse than quack doctors soon found himself behind the bars. PRISONER A BRILLIANT WRITER. Reid is a trembling old man, penniless and despairing, fie is known to many old New York practitioners of repute as a man of splendid attainments, who was ab one time a profound thinker and a brilliant writer, and in the minds of these old acquaintances he is more pitied than censured, though all admit that he should be punished for furnishing reckless men with means of killing through ignorance of medicine and surgery. Dr. Reid, before his fall, had many distinguished friends and acquaintances, Thomas Carlylo being ohe of them, and in his writing he showed surprising intimacy with that famous essayist. ONCE A FRIEND OF CARLYLE'S. The doctor was questioned about Carlyle while in gaol. " Yes, sir," said the doctor, "I owe the great change which took place in my life's work to Mr. Carlyle's influence. He was good enough to take a great interest in me. I was then studying medicine in London, but also giving as much time as I was able to pure literature. Mr. Carlyle's attention was attracted by something I had written, and he sent for me to come to Chelsea. Of course I went, and then commenced an intimacy that changed the whole current of my life. Mr. Carlyle spoke in terms of positive enthusiasmof my socialistic philosophy. His praise fairly staggered me. He was as enthusiastic about the work as in earlier year 3 Goethe had been about his. Of course I ab once determined to devobe all my energies to literature and to the development of my peculiar theories. I went to Switzerland for this purpose, and spent several years there in study, giving up entirely for a time my ambition to become a physician."