San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-02-09
MEDICATION BY FORCE.
STARTLING PROPOSITION MADE sY
A NOTED PHYSICIAN.

He Advocates That There he NO TrNato
Practitioners. but an Organized Medical
PoIioe-A Radical Idea.
Sickness is a crime and should be
made punishable by law"
This remark emanated from one of the
most eminent and highly respected ply
sicians in the city.
mo physician, however far advanced
in his profession he may be, can con-
scientiously say that he is infallibly IA
miliar with the cases he is called on to
treat" continued the doctor. "My
opinion is, as much as I love my profess
sion, that the sooner the present class of
doctors is wiped out the better. be-
lieve that the government should have
complete charge of caring for the sick
throughout the country, and that the
most miserable pauper should have the
same treatment and show for his life
that the millionaire has. l believe that
if such was the case sickness could be re-
duced to such a minimum that the legis-
lature could conscientiously construct
law making it crime to be sick. Epi-
| denies spring from carelessness, and all
sicknesses result from abuses of the hui
man system and neglect.
'My suggestion would be to have the
government select certain physicians and
educate them up to the very best stand
ard possible to be obtained in medicine.
Let expense be secondary considera-
ton. If it cost million dollars to reach
az ha A
physicians have attained their education
cause medical department to be estab-
lished ON the same general plan as the
police department is run.
HIS UNIQUE PLAN.
"Have chief of physicians, inspector
of physicians, captains of physicians,
sergeants and patrolmen, the same as
the police department has. Let this
city, for instance, be divided into pre-
cincts and sub-precincts, and let the pa
trolmen visit each family every day, and
where sickness is found let reports be
made and the proper medical remedies
applied. Let every person, rich or poor,
receive the same proper treatment.
"Let the salaries of the officers be of
such standard and. the rules govern
ing the department be so strict that it
would be folly for subordinate to at
tempt discrimination between the rich
and poor. Make it crime punishable
by imprisonment for person to attempt
to employ physician not appointed in
the department. Have it so systematized
that q person could not be taken down
sick without the fact becoming immedi-
ately known to Tie department and the
disease checked in its incipiency.
"For instance, suppose patrolman
should discover a peculiar disease in a
tenement house district. Let him ad-
minister to the imm "diate relief of the
patient and report the case to his cap
tain. The latter reports it to the chief
and the chief sends one of his staff of ex-
pert physicians to diagnose the case and
then apply the proper remedies.
"There is no reason why people should
be sick, and when it is discovered that
the same persons have become sick sew
eral times with the same disease through
their own carelessness they should be
arrested and imprisoned as criminals.
CRIMINAL MALPRACTICE.
"As strange and preposterous as it
may seem, according to years of observa-
ton and careful calculation and compar-
ison with other countries, there are in the
United States more than million cases
of criminal malpractice annually under
the present system of doctoring. This
is one of the principal evils that would
be checked should the government es-
tablish such u department as l have de-
scribed.
at would be only comparatively
short time when we would have the
healthiest city in the world, and it
would ultimately result in establishing
condition Of affairs where sickness, ex-
cept in natural way, would be entirely
eliminated.
"Why, just take the report of the
mortality in this state. 1t shows a
death rate of 269 persons day, or an
annual rate of 16 persons to every 1000
inhabitants. Nearly one-third of these
deaths occurred under the age of years
from diseases that with proper and i'm
mediate attention could have been cured.
Diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping
cough, measles, diarrh9al diseases and
typhoid fever were the principal causes
of death. Under the system have de-
scribed patrolmen could have discovered
| these cases in time to have checked the
diseases and saved the persons lives.
sit is the only way by which cpl
denies of infectious diseases can be sue
cessfully eradicated, and the sooner the
government sees the necessity of estab-