Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1905-07-06
DOCTORS IN ENGLAND
THE SCHEMES THEY USE TO GET IN
THE EYE OF THE PUBLIC.
shrewd Expedients by which Lucra-
tive Practices Are Acquired and by
which They Dodge the Rule of the
p~rofessfon Against ADVERTISING.

A young doctor beginning to practice
is terribly handicapped by the rule
under which any medical man who ad'
vertises is expelled from the profess
sion, says the Leeds Mercury. lie
may be an extremely gifted physician
or geo and yet if he has not cap
itaI 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 lodges are adopted to evade and de-
feat the rule against advertising. 1t
is well known in the profession that
reputation and a 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
and driving at a terrific pace through
a half dozen streets. Sometimes he va
ried this by forgetting to take a neces-
sary instrument when visiting a 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 IIsculaplus owes on
income Of 10000 a year to an ingen-
ious stratagem, on which he risked the
last couple of hundred pounds he had
In the world. Having a very intelligent
sister who was DESTROYS 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 a 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 a drug
which paralyZed her limbs and gave
her the appearance of being in b last
stages Of fatal illness. Then she was
taken in an ambulance to apartments
in a fashionable west end street, in or
der, so to speak, as n forlOrn hope, to
place herself under the care Of DR.. y.
DR.. ", her brother, had meanwhile
taken rooms In a ISighbOring street,
put up his brass plate and hired n 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 q hopeless case by all the big med
ical men of London. At the end Of two
months he had cured her, and patients
began to pour into his waiting room.
But the most successful method Of all
Is to write a popular medical book or a
semimedical magazine article or even
a letter to the daily press. One medical
man found that a religious poem which
he sent without any Interior motives
to a widely circulated church magazine
proved better than a Klondike gold
mine. 1t Is also known that the best
paying patients are not the really sick,
but those who imagine they are.
These foolish people devour dictlona-
ries Of medicine and medical journals,
and no one knows this better than the
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
Of writing well.
But probably the best advertisement
a doctor car 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
bADAllly DC SCH lnlllClcu anu IldI III
senic had nothing whatever to do with
the death. Great is the scheming to
get engaged in n Of those trials, for
b publicity Is worth a diamond mine.
Still another plan is to get up a hos
pital for the Ire 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 all
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 IA
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 II be have only a sly 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 a hundred guineas to them.
A doctor would give a deal to have II
announced in the papers that he has
returned from a well earned holiday In
Norway OF the Mediterranean, and
many a medical man owes his com,
Portable income to the friendly editor
who says something about him In the
column Of personal news.
Most Of these mafhnHo ~ oDon ooIx