The Day When Patients Will Pay Doctors For Keeping Them Well

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19130, 26 September 1936, Page 9

The Day When Patients Will Pay Doctors For Keeping Them Well

"THE future of medicine must clearly lie in prevention. . . . Now cures will come, hut apart from the extension of existing methods such as .serum and vaccine therapy, drugging and radiation, ir, is not easy to guess from where," writes Dr. Wyndham E. B. Lloyd, M.A., M.R.U.S., D.H.P., in "A Hundred Years of -Medicine."

The author points out that in Brit-, aln the mail! causes of death,, in order of importance, are heart disease, cancer, diseases of the respiratory organs,' tuberculosis and cerebral haemorrhage; and. asserts that one of the main causes .of heart disease is rheumatism.! As to the future. Dr. Wvndham Llovd says:— I

"There are many ailments which' produce much suffering and economic. loss, hut which are considered of, secondary importance because they do not kill. Let us take just one example, the most, widespread and intractable of them all. This is undoubtedly to be found in all those various inflictions which are indicated by the collective term 'chronic rheumatism.' I No Jubilation over Rheumatism.

"The very mention of this should he sufficient to moderate any paean of jubilation over the triumphs of modern medicine. Here is a condition for which there is yet no sure preventive or certain cure. Elaborate attempts have been made to identify the cause, to discover the climatic or other conditions which aid or binder Ihe development of rlieumaVism, and to find the host met hods of curing the disease when it, has developed, or at least of delaying its progress. "Much can he done to allay the worst, pains of rheumatism and to cure it in the early stages before the joints have been permanently damaged, but how much remains to be done can be judged from the fact that a recent estimate puts the annual economic, loss in Britain due to rheumatism at, £17,000,000. "It must, he mentioned, however, that in these days of unemployment and alleged over-production, it is extremely doubtful if.' this figure has any real value except to bring home the fact that the amount of crippling from this one cause is enormous. Rheumatism is'certainly one of the diseases which the medical profession must make an early and organised attempt to destroy." On the subject of malnutrition the medical author writes: — "There is no doubt that there is a section of the population in almost every country, England included, where tlie value of wages in proportion to the cost, of food is so low that it is virtually impossible for them to obtain a. diet which is suflieient in quantity and variety to meet the line needs of health. Wives Who Buy Wrong roods

"This evil is increased by the availability of huge quantities of cheap foods which have comparatively Jillle real value. This, added lo the ignorance of the housewife, will often mean that even if her income is actually large enough she will starve herself of some essential ingredients. "In this country there is very little starvation from want of calorie value, but there is still much ill-health due to lack of variety in the food consumed. The abolition of the evils is a

matter for instruction in food values, shopping; cookery and economics rather than mccliciue.

"There is a curiously illogical outlook which almost everyone adopts in fact, it' not in theory, with respect to medical practices. The doctor lives by sickness, not by health. The more people who are ill, the more the doctor earns, and most people take this stale of affairs for granted. This is no) to suggest thai tlie private practitioners are not for the most part wholly upright, ethical and competent; but there ought to be nunc doctors who are paid to.kecp us 'healthy, and then we should need fewer to try to put us right, when we have fallen ill.

"The individual is left to his. .own devices until ho fails ill, when he applies to his own practitioner for aid. That Bottle of Medicine.

"Here again ignorance is largely to blame. The average patient expects too much. Too often he wants to be cured in 10 minutes, with a bottle of physic, of all the accumulated ills of -10 years of offence against the principles of healthy living. It is not the I fault of the doctor that he lives on other people's troubles.

"Ignorance of elementary biology is largely to blame. Everyone should be taught to go to the doctor to find out how to keep well and not to wait until sickness has struck him down. Unfortunately, it is improbable that many people will be persuaded that it is to their advantage to pay a fee to a doctor when they are feeling perfectly well. This is a kind of thrift ■which will hardly appeal to the masses."