Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-04
OUR MAIL POUCH.
A Victim Sounds a Warming.

To the Editor of The Dispatch:
The season having set in for the great
annual pilgrimage of invalids as well as
pleasure seekers to our health resorts, it
seems to me an opportune time to offer a
suggestion through your columns which
many persons may find productive of ad-
vantage to themselves.
This is, to arrive at the point briefly, that
it will be found wise precaution for inva-
lids forced to employ the services of resi-
dent physicians at the resorts at which their
maladies render them guests to have a clear
understanding in advance as to what terms
OF compensation the patients are to rest
responsible for. That is to say, the patient
should. for his or her own protection, ascer-
tain before employing the local physician
what fee he proposes to charge for his
services. There are many practitioners at
our great and little health resorts who prac
tically live by the compensations they re-
ceive or exact from persons whose Affections
demand medical care during q summer
period. Many of these practitioners are
competent and, no doubt, honorable men;
only too many, however, belong to class
whom our loose system of medical license
places in the position to prey upon the
aff1lcted and to levy an extortionate tribute
on the sufferings of helpless humanity.
A great many people have been laughing
over the story of a physician of this city who
received the following communication from
a rural practitioner:
DEAR DOCK-I hav a pashunt who's phisicol sines
shoes that the windpipe has liberated of. and his
lung hav drop intoo his stumick. he is unabel to
sWoller and feer his stumick tube is gone. hav
CIV him eyry thing without efeckt. his father is
Weithy, Onerable and infuenshia. he is an active
member off the NJ. E. Chirsch and god nose don't
want want to loose hym. what shall due. ans. buy re-
turne male. yours in needle.
This may be funny story on its face but
it is very serious matter that it involves. L
nave myself been treated at a well-known
health resort in this State by a licensed
physician ply who spelled Symptoms with an
'1' and city with two ats" 1 was last sum-
mer advised by my family physician to try
series OF baths, being at that time helpless
cripple from the worst form of rheumatism.
My treatment in the hands of the local prac-
titioner was such that had to be removed
from the resort in question and from his
mercl1ul care to save my life. The charge to
winch l was put for the maItreatment that
nearly ext1nguished the little vitality 1 had
LETT when L terminated nv STAY, was four
tlnes as much per visit as his usual fee to
local patients. But l was hotel guest; had
employed this person, he being the physician
connected with the hotel. In my state of in
cessant anguish bodily and mental 1 had
maze no 1nquiryas to his charges until too
late, and SO paid the penalty in full.
rms distinction between the hotel and the
local patient is almost universal at those
places where invalids are forced to congre-
gate The principle, or lack of principle,
upon which it is baseu seems to be that sick
hotels can afford to be gouged. The fact,
however, is that the majority of invalids at
health resorts upon whom these vultures
fatten are not persons of large means.
Wealthy men and women have their own
summer houses or can afford to hire them
and to provide for the professional attention
and advice their Affections require 1t is
the great middle class which is forced to re-
sort to the hotel for relief from the city in
summer, and often at the cost of the most
grinding economies, to pay these preyers
upon their pitiable condition their extortion-
ate fees for share of service.
Women, and especially women of mature
ana older yearS-wOmen to whom the rudest
laborer and the most aggressive tough of
New York would and do on occasion render
service gladly because they recognize their
helplessness and pain-are quite as pitiIessly
heeced by these bandits who carry mostly
unearned diploma as shield. Indeed, the
rule seems to be that the weaker the victim
is, the stronger he or she can be safely
mulcted. make my case an illustration as
being, believe, typical of many. The
evil exists, as far as 1 can learn, all over the
country, and the only safeguard the sum-
mer-seeking invalid has is to begin the en-
ployment of the local leeches by finding out
just how much the extraction of each drop
of blood is going to cost. E1perto crede Ru-
pe,to A VICTIM.
NEW YORK CITY, July2