The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-10-07
The Depression and Medicine

Industry and agriculture frequently have been
picked upon to illustrate the anarchy and chaos pro-
duced by unrestricted competitive ideals. We have
srfeit of shoes and shoe factories but children and
adults go with bare feet We have vast surplus OF
unconsumed wheat, but there are long breadlines
It would seem that the same disastrous results OF
Inadequate organization and planning also have
affected the physicians. DR.. Charles Gordon Heyd'
president of the medical society of New York state,
has declared that large number of physicians IN our
larger cities have been forced to turn to work as
axi-drivers night watchmen and elevator operators,
to eat.
The depression has rendered it increasingly diff
cult for city patients to pay doctors bills They either
seek treatment in dispensaries and clinics or face
disease without medical assistance.
DR. Heyd tells us that 20 per cent of the families
who formerly went to personal physicians now are
without medical He might have gone further
and told us that taking the country as whole, more
than 20 per cent of the population have been devoid
of decent medical care for a generation
Every important survey of farm life in the United
States during the last quarter century has emphasized
1nadequacy of medical care in rural districts AS the
practice of medicine has been rendered more scientific
and has been urbanized through hospital work and
connections doctors have become reluctant
to practice among farmers and in small villages.
Hospitals are distant or nonexistent. Considerable
distances must be covered to call on patients There
are few gilt-edged prospects for high fees.
1t may be granted that rural practice is less entic
ing than Park avenue Office in New York CITY, along
with tie-ups with the best metropolitan hospitals But
modern technology has made the rural practice of
medicine much more feasible and practicable than
it was in the old days of the country doctor of honor
able tradition, literary and medical
Formerly, a relative of the sick person would
have to make hard trip by horse and buggy often
over almost impossible roads in the dead of night,
to inform the doctor of his need for assistance.
The doctor then would have to harness his horse
and follow his informant the miserable
bogs
Today rural doctor is called by telephone
promptly. He backs his car out of the garage and
speeds to his patient over paved state or county
roads, passable at almost any time of year.
If he must consult laboratory a specialist the
country doctor visit neighboring metropolis in
a few hours. Again the improvement and cheaper
ing of many mechanical medical devices in recent
years makes it possible for country doctor to have
equipment which was available, if at all, only in
hospitals generation back.
Not only is there general lack of adequate med-
cal attention in the country; there is special and
alarming absence of scientific treatment of certain
types of disease notably venerea diseases and mental
and nervous disorders.
If the medical profession not bring about this
desirable transfer of elevator-runnng physicians to
unserved rural sections then there is task in
medical economy and organization to which the de-
partment of agriculture the department of the inter-
ior or both, well might devote serious attention
Here is a back to the land" movement which has
some sense and logic behind it.