Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-18

or more hospital STATS And for all these
twentieth century advantages there is
penalty. You must pay the bill.
That doctor-financier knows just what
you are worth, just how much money you
can raise and just how much he is justified
In charging for the operation hanging over
the head of some member of your family.
The doctor of today has a sliding scale of
prices, governed, not according to the grav-
| ity of the operation, but according to the
financial standing of the patient. In his
way he is just as generous the country
physician who ushered you into the world
but he measures his generosity by a diff
ferent standard.
He goes to the hospital or the dispen-
sary. He sees there child threatened with
a lifelong deformity deft touch of his
knife and the child has good chance to
become a strong able-bodied citizen. He
does not hesitate for moment. Perhaps
there is a certain amount of scientific in
terest in the case. Perhaps ii IS his first
operation of this sort The fact remains
that the whole future of the child depends
upon the doctors willingness to perform
the operation without money and without
price. This interest induces him to secure
for the child the very best accommoda-
tons the hospital affords. He rouses the
| nurses and his assistants to do their best,
and the child goes forth cured.
Three months later there comes to this
same physician a man worth millions,
man who counts a $4,000 automobile as a
Christmas tree toy. a man who deals in
street car lines as lightly as the father of
the little hospital cripple sells half-frozen
bananas on street corner, and the Child
of the millionaire has the same deformity
as the little hospital patient. Again the
operation is performed, and again the de-
formed is made straight and strong, and
the surgeon charges 5000 for an hours
work. The papers set forth the fact in big
head lines and the public say that the sur
:
big head, that he charges for name and
not for the amount of work he does. And
all this because they do not know about
the other child who was made whole, and
cannot realize that the rich must pay for
the experiments worked on the poor. The
doctor makes out his bill from this view
point also.
The value of human life varies in indi-
vidual cases. The millionaire VIII spend
every dollar of his million to live The
poor man has only the dollar to pay for
his life. and sometimes he does not care
very much whether it is saved or not. The
millionaire thinks he has everything to live
for; the poor man may think that he has
nothing. The millionaire fights for his
life with his dollars; the doctor fights for
the poor mans life and makes him see
that 1t is worth while; and the millionaire
pays for both.
There is in New York city a surgeon
whose income is said to equal that of the
President of the United States, and he gives
fifteen hours in each week to charity, dis
pensary and hospital work. This does not
include what some doctors call enforced
philanthropy e., bad accounts run with
patients whom he feels quite sure will never
be able to pay up in full.
These fifteen hours are given openly and
freely to the charities of great city. Now
1t may be argued that he can well spare
from his remunerative practice these hours
for CHARITY, but how about the young doc
tor who works at his side? He is just
building up a practice. He counts each pa
tient as a miser might count his pearls.
He, too, gives up fifteen hours each week
to clinic and dispensary work, and while
ne is in the dspensary the telephone at his
Office may ring to summon him to a frac-
ture case worth, perhaps si25, to peri
tonitis case-in fact, any of those acute at
tacks which require the instant service of
a physician.
Now, young doctor might stay in his
office all day and wait for such calls but
he would soon grow rusty and his patients
would not get the benefit of that alert dis
pensary experience.
Specialization is largely responsible for
the disappearance Of the old-fashioned fam
lily physician in the cities as well as for
the so-called exorbitant charges in the pro-
fession. Take, for Instance. a large and
growing family. The father and mother re-
fer to their family physician and this
doctor is called in when an illness mani
tests itself In any member of the family
If the ai1ment is trifiing, he preseribes and
takes his departure If on the other hand,
Il assumes a serious form or requires a spe-
cial line of treatment, he advises his pa
tron as to how and where the child can
best be treated. There Is the atipist If ear
trouble develops, the oeulist IL the diff
Guilty can be traced to the eyes, the throat
and lung specialist for the ailments of those
organs. the surgeon if an operation is ilni-
nent, the nerve specialist for the disorders
thought peculiar 10 these modern times arid
the tendency to oyerwerk and strangely
enough when the first grandchild Is born.
the father finds that gynecologist, and