The Press., 1905-05-24

EAVe Practices Are Acquires ana Wy
 Which They Dodge the Rule of the aPrORessAOn Against Advertising.
 A young doctor beginning to practice is terribly handicapped by the rule Hnder which any medical man who ad- vertises is expelled from the profes- sion, says the Leeds Mercury. He may be an extremely gifted physician or surgeon, and yet If he has not cap ital to buy a practice or interest with the governors of some hospitals he does not succeed in earning enough >during the first few years to keep body and soul together.
 Of course the result is that all sorts of dOdgeS are adopted to evade and de- feat the rule against advertising. 1t is well known in the profession that reputation and large clientele depend more on the success with which this is accomplished than on real scientific ability. A celebrated London surgeon once admitted to the writer that he rose to the top of the tree by getting into his carriage several times a month ssnd driving at terrific pace through Ia half dozen streets. Sometimes he va- ried this by forgetting to take a neces- Sary instrument when visiting patient and then sending his driver back for 1t hot haste. Naturally people were much impressed by the procedure, believing that Surgeon D. must be an excellent surgeon since he was so often called to desperate cases.
 Another London NSculapius owes an income of f1O,OOO a year to an ingen- ious stratagem, on which he risked the last couple of hundred pounds he had ! in the world. Having very intelligent sister who was desirous of helping him, he explained to her the difficulty of making a practice by simply putting a ! brass plate on the door and hanging out red lamp and induced her to be his accomplice In what was not far re- moved from a fraud on the public. Her part in the plot was to take drug which paralyzed her limbs and gave her the appearance of being in the last stages of fatal illness. Then she was taken in an ambulance to apartments in 8 fashionable west end street, in or der, so to speak, as a forlorn hope, to place herself under the care of Dr. X. Dr. X., her brother, had meanwhile taken rooms In a neighboring street, put up his brass plate and hired a car riage with a spanking pair of horses. Three times every day he spent an hour with the invalid, while the car riage drove up and down the street. He cleverly managed to have 1t report ed that his patient had been given up as hopeless case by all the big med ical men of London. At the end of two Snonths he had cured her, and patients began to pour into his waiting room. But the most successful method of all ! Is to write popular medical book or a semimedical magazine article or even letter to the daily press. One medical man found that religious poem which he sent without any ulterior motives to a widely circulated church magazine proved better than a KlOndike gold mine. It is also known that the best paying patients are not the really sick, but those who imagine they are.
 These foolish people devour dictiona- ries of medicine and medical Journals,
 
 pushing doctor. In fact, the medical journals are more extensively read by the laity than by the medical fraterni ty, and the doctor who can get a clever article published in one of them is sure to draw patients. Letters to the news papers on occasions such as an cpl demic, the vivisection agitation and the like are equally effective. And no doubt they would be more numerous but for the curious fact that the study of medicine seems to destroy the power 0e writing well.
 But probably the best advertisement doctor can have Is to be employed in some cause celebre. This is partly the explanation of the extraordinary spec tacle now and then witnessed in the courts of three or four medical men swearing that a certain wound could easily be self inflicted or that death was undoubtedly due to arsenic, while three or four more pledge themselves that the wound could not by any pos sibility be self inflicted and that ar senic had nothing whatever to do with the death. Great is the schemlng to get. engaged In one of those trials, for the publicity is worth a diamond mine.
 Still another plan is to get up hos pital for the cure of some special dis ease. For this purpose several doctors often club together and with funds of their own, plus what they can get from the charitable public, open a hospital for skin diseases or deformities or ail- ments of any and every organ. Their names are not only advertised in the press, by circulars and at all kinds of dinners and annual meetings, but often they are put up on a large board out side the hospital, and they who would otherwise remain obscure become fa- nous and get patients from the four corners of the kingdom. -.. ..
 One of the most famous ways of ad- vertising is the issuing of bulletins about the health of some man of note. Even if he have only a sty in his eye the public is kept acquainted with its progress. In that case the doctor al- ready has nearly all the reputation and patients he cares for, but lesser lights often have their names associated with the crack physician, and every bulle- tin Is worth hundred guineas to them.
 A doctor would give deal to have it announced in the papers that he has returned from a. well earned holiday fin Norway or the Mediterranean, and many a medical man owes his com fortable income to the friendly editor who says something about him in the column of personal news.
 Most of these methods are open only to the city practitioner. The men who settle in small towns have to adopt diff ferent means. Generally they make use of all their arts to make friends with the ladies They try to be very charming at garden parties and ba- Ears, attend church regularly and some