An Automatic Doctor.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 2, 12 January 1910, Page 8

An Automatic Doctor.

The automatic doctor has made Ms appearance at last—in America, of course. There an ingenious inventor has patented a machine representing a man, having in the region of each organ a slot into which a coin may be dropped. The patient diagnoses his own complaint, drops the prescribed fee into the corresponding slot, and learns at once what means he should adopt to get rid of the trouble. The idea is excellent; but think of the reckless extravagance into which it must tempt the hypochondriac, of ths unpleasantness that may occur when the careless man uses the wrong slot and is advised to take a seidlitz-powder ns a cure for a sprained ankle, or of the disappointment of the thoughtless patron who mistakes it for an ordinary automatic machine and receives a recipe for making corn-plaster when he expects a cigarette or a bottle of scent!