THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND THE PEOPLE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 2766, 4 August 1883, Page 3

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND THE PEOPLE.

_ {Bury Guardian.) A decision has recently been given which reveals v principle of the highest importance to every man and woman throughout the country. It bears upon the present relation of the medical profession towards the public — a relation concerning which there is much popular ignorance, and which it is essential m the interests of the common weal should be removed as spoedily as possible. Outdoctors, as a rule, are the most popular of personages, and perhaps always will } be. They are moro frequently chosen to attend upon us for personal rather than professional attainments, and it ia m thia regard where the public are most froquently led to dothomselves unintentional injury, as wo hope to show. The same remark applies, though perhaps to a loss extent, to the members of lodges of Oddfellows, Foresters, and every other species of friendly society. About the last thing which people, individually or collectively, ask themselves or caro to be sure about is tho extent of tho qualifications of tho gentlemen who attend them upon matters which often involvo life or death. They would nevar dream of sending a watch to be repaired at a blacksmith's shop, or of sending a horse to bo shod at a watchmaker's, and yet m taking disease or impaired bodies to bo renovated quito as great anomalies are perpetrated by unthinking people. Men and women suffering from internal complaints, complex and requiring specific treatment, rush to or Bend for tho nearest " doctor" or tho " medical man" of their particular fancy, with a supremo disregard or ignorance of his qualification. If he be a surgeon, that is sufficient for tho popular idea. But a surgeon is neither sufficient for internal disease legally or profossionally. Ho is merely a gentleman qualified for surgical operations, and | does not necessarily know more than a travelling quack about the complaints through which tho majority of peoplo leave this unkind world. If a surgeon acts m the capacity of a man qualified m medicine he does that which the law positively forbids him to do, but which the law has been lamentably deficient m seeing to. If the surgeon renders an account for services so given, his bill may bo cast into the fire and no mora troubled about, because no English court of law allows a man to charge for services of so important a character as to require a cortain high proficiency, and which are undertaken be persons not possessing that qualification. In this, Parliament and the great medical universities sought to protect the public health, and to run counter to that intention is a species of fraud. We believe it is a fact that there are thousands of gentlemen who have only ono qualification, and who are acting at tho present time as if they possessed the double qualification. Not only is the question of the public health involved, but there is that of honor being acknowledged where it is strictly due, and the very serious view which the law places upon ■uch unfair trading, which it is. There are men amongst vs — respectable men, too, and men otherwise of great integrity — who persist m calling themselves doctors, and have no right to the appellation. Is it not therefore, a species of professional throwing dust m tho eyes of the public who do not sufficiently discriminate m these matters to pose m a capacity which does not rightly belong to them ? Is it not a discouragement to thoae who study hard and aro devoted to their profession to find people recipients of credit who have done nothing to deserve it] If rightly examined and thought out, even this question will be found to contain side issues of tho most momentous nature affecting the people's condition. Happily, thero ia a Bill now before Parliament, sanctioned by the leaders of both political parties, which promises to deal with this question of vial-appropriation of titles, and which it is believed will be retrospective m its character. But there appears to be a still greater evil m our midst, and so far as we can gather from the proposed Medical Bill there is nothing to prevent its continuance. Wo allude to the immense number of unqualified assistants by which the country is now overrun. It is not an uncommon thing for a surgeon or an apothecary who has managed to get together a tolerably extensive practice to have two, three, or even four assistants, who do all the heavy work and run from village to village, and yet patients or their friends are charged full professional prices. We are informed that m Lancashire alone there are hundreds of men acting a3 visiting medical assistants who have been enlisted from behind tho counters of druggists' shop?, men who have never been inside a hospital or medical school, and whose only claims to medical knowledge have been gained through a wanton access to the pharmaceutical artillery bottles of thoir employers. It is strange the medical journals have not taken up this question with greater vigor and determination. It is one of the things which ruin the chances of really capable men, besides having a tendency to degrade the profession. Its ovil consequences can easily be kept from the public eye — alas ! sadly too easily. How fay the public suffer or are put out of suffering it is also impossible to estimate. Why do not the public study their own interests m these matters ? They can be troated and attended by whomsoever they please, certainly ; but the poor and members of all our friendly societies ought to have some guarantee that the assistance which is at times necessary for them is really professional and not otherwise If a man needs the best advice of a doubly qualified man or an M.D. (physician — doctor) — and is willing to pay for his services, it is hardly fair to have the profuse attention of an unqualified or partially qualified assistant thrust upon him. It is unfair trading upon the public, besides being a wrong m the profession itaelf. But the employment of these assistants pay» those who hire them, whilat they are little less than a fraud upon the public. A medical man's relations to his patients are necessarily of a personal nature, and he can hardly be justified m undertaking a larger clientele than he can personally attend to, unless he provides a qualified assistant. It is a fraud for him to hand over a certain — perhaps the larger — portion to the care of another, for if a patient seeks the principal's services he is defrauded by the visit of the assistant, and if he seeks the assistant's services the assistant is defrauded because he earns that which he is not allowed to enjoy. Let us take a typical example which we find given m a recent letter to the Lancet. "Mr X , M.8.C.5..L.5.A., has a large practice, say m Manchester. He ia

- a district medical officer of a union and t surgeon to a dispensary. The practice m ■ worth £2500 per annum, profits conl sisting very largely of clubs and working t people. Ho keeps an assistant, a dis- > penser, a book-keeper and four collectors. 1 He pays his assistant (out-door, married, i and unqualified), who resides near the surgery, £100 per annum and house, and i for thi» the assistant does all the dis- ■ agreeable work— all the night work, his ■ share of midwifery coming to about 200 labors a. year — and is factotum and general servant, while the principal manages to spend two days a week at least at Southport or Llandudno, goes out every evening after seven, &c." Quito sufficient to demonstrate that if unqualified assistants were compulsorily abolished it would be a service to the profession, the public, and to the men themselves.