The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1907-11-12
MEDICAL FAILURES.
An Authority Says Three-Fourths of
Graduates Are United to Practice.

| leges each year are wholly untitled to
practice medicine and are rlenaces to
the communities in which they set
tie was stated by DR.. Chester Mayer
Of the State Board of Medical Exam
liners of Kentucky at meeting of the
American Medical Associations Com
mittee on Medical Education, held in
Chicago not long ago. DR.. Mayer said
that only rs to % per cent of the
graduates are qualified. Fifty-eight
per cent of the graduates examined in
% states were refused licenses. With
few exceptions these failures took
second examination in a few weeks
and only so per cent of them passed,
This does not mean that deficien.
cies in their training were corrected
in those few weeks" DR.. Mayer said.
ut probably shows that experience
showed them what the test would
probably be and they 'crammed' for
the examination. DR.. w. T. Colt,
Secretary of the Indiana Board said:
THE majority of our schools now
teach their students how to pass ex-
aminations, not how to be good ply
sicians."
At the session of the American
Medical Association held in Atlantic
City in June, DR.. NJ Clayton Thrush,
a professor in the Medico Chirurgical
College in Philadelphia said MANY
doctors turned out of the Medical
Schools are so ignorant in matters
pertaining to pharmacy that they
know nothing about the properties
of the drugs they prescribe for their
patients!" DR.. Henry Beats, Jr., Pres
ident of the Pennsylvania State Board
of Medical Examiners, after scrutiniz-
ing the papers of a class of candi-
dates for licensure said About one
quarter of the papers show a degree
of illiteracy that renders the candi-
dates for licensure incapable of I'M
derstanding medicine"
A great many more physicians and
chemists might be quoted in support
OF the astounding charge that 5000 in
competents are being dumped onto
an unsuspecting public each year.
What the damage done amounts to
can never be estimated for these in
competents enjoy the privilege of di-
agnosing, prescribing or dispensing
drugs regarding the properties of
which they know nothing and then
OF signing death certificates that are
not passed upon by anyone unless the
coroner is called in. Probably there
is not grave yard from one end of
the country to the other that does not
contain the buried evidences of the
mistakes or criminal carelessness of
incompetent physicians.
During the last year there have
been perhaps, half a dozen known
cases where surgeons, after perform
ing operations have sewed up the in
cisions without first removing the
gauze sponges used to absorb the
blood, and in some cases forceps and
even surgeons scissors have been
left in the wound. How many of
these cases there have been, where
the patient died, there is no means
OF knowing and comparatively few
OF the cases where the discovery is
made in time to save life become gen.
orally public Reports from Santa
RUINS for the treatment of the Drug
Habit show that members of the medi.
cal profession are more often treated
In these institutions than members
Oh any other profession, and that a
majority of the patients, excluding the
physicians themselves, can trace
their downfall directly to a careless
physician.
how many criminal operations are
performed by physicians is alec a
matter of conjecture. Operations of
TINS class are, unfortunately. very
frequent IN large cities. Some gradu.
ated and licensed physicians. MANY
Oh them of supposed respectahilitv
make an exclusive practice of Grim.
maj medical and surgical treatment
Ut Henry G. w. Rheinhart, Coroner,s
physician OF Chicago, estimates the |
NUMBER OF criminal operations ANN.
ANY, In Chicago alone at 3S OOo How
many resulted fatally are unknowp
as when death results, the real canse
. disguised in the death certificate
which the physician signs. and wbioh
no one but himself and a clerl saaa
PROBABLY not one case of malnrao.
uce In 1000 ever becomes the subieo+
OF law suit but in the last wear ON
proximately $50 cases wherein ~
piaintif has alleged malpractice have
oeen reported in the newspapers and |
owing to the social prominence and
tne favored positions of MANY nbvsi
oians not more than half the now
sults stated, probably, result in anv
newspaper publicity, but it would
PROBABLY not be an exaggeration ~
s sta'e mat the total cases of malnrao
~ we not involving criminal operations
~ criminal medical practice would
amount to 100000 or more Than ona
S TS,se 70 each physician in the countrr
,a nis estimate is, of course moro -
80 conjecture. Untimely deaths ana
pc, disabilities are frearant
anu occur within the knowledge If a.
h h,os' every one, when life could have