The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-07

practitioners as healers, and would al low the national medical officers tt devote practically all their time ana energies to their proper functions. viz the education of the public in persona hygiene and sanitation, and of meas ures for the abolition of infectious diseases.
 There would be work enough il this direction alone, he maintains, too for all the 23,000 medical men on tht British register, whose labors he con. s1ders at present almost wasted be. cause they are misdirected owing tC the present methods of attacking dis ease which are mediaeval in their an tiquity and ignorance.
 "The cost of this revolution woulG be borne by unified system of state insurance against sickness, with con trtbutions from the workman, the em. ployer, and the state. He adduces fig. ures to show that the sum now an nually spent by individuals. and the state on medical fees, sanitary off cials, anti-tuberculosis measures, etc and lost through loss of wages, pro- vision for the unfortunate, and other economic drains, would suffice by merely change of method in collec- tion. Then the sums that would be paid to the government as a tax in stead of as expenses now borne by in- dividuals, would so amply provide a fair average income for each of the existing practitioners that there would really be no new national expenditure entailed
 ..The, gradual evolution of such a service, the author believes. could be brought about in the course of, at at most twenty or twenty-five years without any sudden or revolutionary procedures.
 ''As soon as the proposed state in- surance came into action state ex- animation should be established for entry into thestate medical service.
 'sFor the first three years the en- trance into the service should be sent into the state hospitals which the new scheme would inevitably require. At the end of the three years a basis would have been obtained on which incomes could be calculated, and then the inducements of steady income, based on these figures, with retiring allowance at, say, 65 years. should be offered to induce men in private prac- tice to enter the service.
 Vacancies by death and retirement could be filled from the men under going training in the state hospitals. and the author seems sanguine that in three years a large number of exist ing practitioners would elect to join the state medical service, which in twenty-five years would have auto- matically established itself by the natural process of slow growth"
 The author proceeds to tell in de- tail how territory would be divided up among the state doctors, and the routine of their daily work.
 Here are the advantages to the med ica1 profession, as pointed out by Dr. Moore:
 "An assured income; settled pro- vision for the future as a retiring al- lowanee; relief from clerical work, bill collecting etc, relief from the dilem- ma of charge of neglect on the one hand or of making business on the other; equal opportunities for the training. consequent on hosiptal work :; compactness of work, leisure. and stu dy time; abolition of professional jeal- ousy; the breadth of training and op- portunity from being moved about from place to place; the abolition of cheap practice and of hospital abuse.
 For the public, competent atten- dance under all circumstances, nU scamped work, no worry about fees, leading to unnecessary and possibly delay in seeking aid pre- vention of sickness rather than cure, and consequent saving in money as we'll as distress mental and material