The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-12
PROFESSIONAL EARNINGS.

Medicine and the Clergy.
 The law is probably the most protta-
 ble of the so-calIed learned professions,
 There are more and larger prizes to be
 gained by an acute and eloquent disci-
 pie of the legal art than are open to the
 medical man or the minister. In this
 country and Great Britain the incomes
 of the foremost advocates and of attor-
 neys in lucrative practice for the most part overshadow the yearly earnings nf 1 the best-known physicians and sur
 geons, and to a still greater extent these
 of our spiritual advisers. Occasionally
 one hears of very large fortunes being | left by prominent doctors-Sir William Gull Sir Andrew Clarke, pr, Pepper
 and Sir William Jenner are cases In l point; but these are exceptions, ana
 sums accumulated by medical men
 cannot be compared either in number or
 magnitude to the colossal amounts
 amassed by members of the legal fra l ternity When, however, the average
 incomes of these three classes of the
 community are considered, their relative
 position in Great Britain and the United States will be found to differ. Viewed | thus, in the United Kingdom the clergy
 man is at the top of the list, the lawyer second, and the doctor last; while here
 the lawyer or doctor gets larger share
 of the "loaves and fishes." and the min ister has to be content with the crumbs. The average income of physician In large cities on this continent may be f,,lo ,a1 doll rc r Ia
 smaller towns at fifteen hundred dollars,
 and in the rural districts at twelve hun-
 dred dollars. Two or three New York
 physicians are said to make over one
 hundred thousand dollars year, five or
 six about fifty thousand dollars, but the
 average income although rather higher
 than in Chicago and In other American
 large cities, does not greatly exceed two
 thousand dollars yearly The minister
 averages in the city perhaps twelve hundred dollars and in the country cer- tainly not more than eight hundred dol lars yearly.
 As regards living expenses. both the lawyer and minister have an advantage over their professional brother. In New York, for example, office accommoda- tion suitable to a physician is very dear, in good neighborhood costing not less than seventy or eighty dollars a month, which with board and lodging and other necessary disbursements will represent sum of one hundred and twenty dol 1 lars monthly, sufficiently weighty bur den for a struggling youthful practition- | CT to bear The young minister has no rent to pay, while the legal neophyte 1lot in according to the length of his purse.
 Nevertheless the lot of the medical | beginner compared with that of a pas- tor in like situation has its compensa- tions. He is at least more or less inde- 1 pendent. The minister, on the contrary, | is as a rule permitted to exercise his own will but to limited degree, and often is doomed to go through a lifetime | of toll, subservient to the caprice of elders and deacons. An ex- cellent description of the trials of an American country minister and the va rious unpleasantnesses with which he | has to contend at the hands of his con- is given in the 'Damnation of Theron Ware" the best novel written by the late Harold Frederic.
 When all is said that can be said, the first few years of medical practice are years of arduous effort full of disilu- and disappointment The late Sir Andrew Clarke told Dr. Osler: From the vantage ground of more than 'orty years of hard work I can say that [ have striven ten years for bread, ten years for bread and butter, and twenty years for cake and ale" The truth un- loubtedly is, and especially in the large ,enters of population in America, that he opportunities for physician to ob ain adequate compensation for his ser yices are yearly becoming less.
 This is not due to any deterioration in he quality of the pdesent-day practi-
 oner or an evidence of falling off in medical skill The fact is irrefutable hat the medical profession in this and n all civilized countries stands on a higher plane in the matter of training md knowledge than ever before. The 'eason for the decrease in medical in- ,omes is indubitably almost wholly owing to the more eager competition lmong regular practitioners, to hospital md dispensary abuse, and to the la increase in quackery The supply of medical men is greater than he demand; the market is flooded, and he most potent remedy we can suggest 'or this evil is that as has been many | imes advised in the Medical Record, | inform high standard of medical edu- tate.-Medical Record. ts