The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1907-10-26
MEDICAL FAILURES.
An Authority Says Three-Fourths Of
Graduates Are United to Practice.

Graduates Are Onntteo 70 TTdStiSo'
That 5000 out of the 1000 gradu-
ates turned out by the Medical Col
leges each year are wholly untitled to
practice medicine and are menaces to
the communities in which they set
tie was stated by DIR. Chester Mayer,
of the State Board of Medical Exam
liners of Kentucky at a meeting of the
American Medical Associations Com
mittee on Medical Education, held In
Chicago not long ago. DIR. Mayer said
that only rs to % per cent OF the
graduates are qualified. Fffty-eight
per cent Of the graduates examined In
% states were refused licenses. With
few exceptions these failures took
second examination in few weeks
and only so per cent of them passed.
This does not mean that dedcten-
cies in their training were corrected
in those few weeks" DIR. Mayer said
1T probably shows that experience
showed them what the test would
probably be and they 'crammed' for
the examination. DR.. w. T. Gott,
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, DIR. M. 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 degree
of illiteracy that renders the candi'
dates for licensure incapable OF un'
Outstanding medicine"
A great many more physicians ano
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 tt
can never be estimated for these In
competents enjoy the privilege OF d!
agnosing, prescribing or dispensing
drugs regarding the properties o
which they know nothing and thel
+ of signing death certificates that ar
not passed upon by anyone unless tn
coroner is called in. Probably Their
is not a grave yard from one end
the country to the other that does no
contain the buried evidences OF tn
:. mistakes or criminal carelessness 9
incompetent physicians.
During the last year there hav
been perhaps, half a dozen know
cases where surgeons, after perform
ing operations have sewed up the II
. cisions without first removing tn
!" gauze sponges used to absorb tn
= blood, and in some cases forceps an
even surgeons scissors have bee
a left in the wound. How many
- these cases there have been, whel
" the patient died, there is no meal
20 of knowing and comparatively re
10 of the cases where the discovery
Va made in time to save life becUme &c
70 orally public. Reports from SAINT
40 RUINS for the treatment of the DR.
N Habit show that members OF the met
ey cal profession are more often treat'
m in these institutions than membe
10, of any other profession. and that
~ majority of the patients, excluding t
M physicians themselves, can ira
their downfall directly to a carele
gs physician.
How many criminal operations
Va performed by physicians is also
se. matter of conjecture. Operations
ed this class are, unfortunately, We
i'm frequent in large cities. Some graz
IRE ated and licensed physicians, ma
me of them of supposed respectable
yer make an exclusive practice OF crl
ed, inal medical and surgical treatme
lat DR.. Henry g. w. Rheinhart, Corone
III. physician of Chicago, estimates
to number Of criminal operations, an
tho ALLY, in Chicago alone at $4,000. H
ere many resulted fatally are unkno'
the as when death results, the real ca
It'll. is disguised in the death certific,
ere which the physician signs, and VIII
tile no one but himself and clerk 81
use Probably not one case Of malpl
IN tice in 1000 ever becomes the subj
of law suit but in the last year
me. proximately $50 cases wherein
SO plaintiff has alleged malpractice b
lite been reported in the newspapers,
nes owing to the social prominence
md the favored positions of many phi
clans not more than half the !
ith suits stated, probably, result In
nu't nouananor nuhlicifx hut II WO