Free press., 1907-09-21
MEDICAL FAILURES.
An Authority Says Three-Fourths Of
Graduates Are United to Practice.

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 nenaces to-
the communities in which they set
tie was stated by DR.. Chester Mayer.
OF the State Board Of Medical Exam
iners of Kentucky at meeting of the
American Medical Associations Com
mittee on Medical Education, held In
Chicago not long ago. DIR. Mayer said
that only 20 to % per cent of the
graduates are qualified FTfty-eight
per cent of the graduates examined in
% states were refused licenses With
few exceptions these failures took a !
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
1T probably shows that experience
showed them what the test would
probably be and they 'crammed' for.
the examination. DR.. w. I. 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, DR.. M. Clayton Thrush.
a professor in the Medico ChirurgicaI
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 class of candi-
dates for licensure said: About one
quarter of the papers show degree
of illiteracy that renders the candi-
dates for hcensure incapable of un-
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 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
OIL 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
of 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 also a
matter of conjecture. Operations of
frequent in large cities Some gradu-
ated and licensed physicians, many
of them of supposed respectability,
make an exclusive practice of GRIM
inal medical and surgical treatment
DR.. Henry G. w. Rheinhart, Coroner'S
physician of Chicago, estimates the
number Of criminal operations, annu-
ALLY, in Chicago alone at $4,000. How
many resulted fatally are unknown
as when death results. the real cause
is disguised in the death certificate.
which the physician signs. and which
no one but himself and clerk sees
Probably not one case of malprac-
dce In 1000 ever becomes the subject
Of law suit but in the last year ap-
$50 cases wherein the
plaintiff has alleged malpractice have
been reported in the newspapers, and
owing to the social prominence and
he favored positions of many pllysi-
clans not more than half the new
suits stated, probably, result in any
newspaper publicity, but it would
probably not be an exaggeration to
state that the total cases of ma1Drac-
ice, not involving criminal operations
or criminal medical practice, would
amount to 10000 or more than one
ease to each physician in the country
This estimate is, of course. more or
ess conjecture. Untimely deaths and
nernnanenf disabilities are frenuerlf