The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-07-30
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

THE science of medicine and surgery has
u made amazing progress during the last gen.
Grafton Indeed, it is no eXaggeration to say
that there has been more of an advance in med
ical science since the American Civil War than
there was between the Stone Age and the in
auguratiOn of President Lincoln.
/ But there has been no comparable develop
ment Of the social and professional ideals which
control the practice of medicine and surgery.
Notions which were dominant in the age of the
country doctor dominate us in an era of science
machines urban life and professional Specializa-
ton. This lag between medical science and the
organization of medical practice has now brought
about veritable crisis in the medical world.
There is a general trend toward Spec1aliza-
ton, especially in the medical practice in the
cities Its cost is almost prohibitive save for
the very wealthy and for charity patients. The
public has little knowledge or guaranty that
actual specialized proficiency will always accom-
pany the pretense to specialization. The general
run of patients are unable to pay their medical
bills while an all too large number of doctors
are unable to gain an income at all commenSur-
ate with their long years of training and the
expense involved in getting ready for and un-
dertaking the practice of medicine.
It is of high significance that the problem
has beeen tackled by one of the most eminent
and respectable of American doctors and that
his book IS commended by no less person than
former President A. Lawrence Lowell of Har-
ward University. DR.. Hugh Cabots important
book, 1.-THE Doctors Bill" columbia University
Press, So, is sane, calm and courageous analy-
sis of the medical dilemma of our day. 1t is
bound to exert wide influence not only because
of its intrinsic merit but also because the plu-
tocratic moguls of the American Medical Asso-
citation will not be able to hurl at the author
the epithets of "Bolshevik' or "Charlatan."
DR CABOT draws a lucid contrast between
- medical practice in 1890 and 1880 and
clearly indicates the nature of the present medi-
cal crisis. He then surveys the development OF
health insurance and soclalized medicine abroad
and in this country. He clearly implies that the
present system of medical practice must be
abandoned in favor of group medicine COM
pulsory health insurance, salaried doctors and
general social control of the character of med
ical practice, carefully safeguarding the Scien-
tific autonomy of doctors and surgeons.
He poses the sham in the pretense of the
medical plutocrats that medical practice must
be based upon 1.-The free choice of physicians"
He shows that this demand for freedom seems
to concern the doctors far more than the pa
tents.
The clear implication of DR.. Cabots IS that
the situation has narrowed down to one of the
medical welfare of the people Of the United
States versus the vested interests of the gov
erning clique of the American Medical AsSocia-
ton, which in no important way represents
either the interests or the welfare of the major
ity of the American doctors
Walter Pitkins reputation, if not his income,
has suffered unjustly from his reviewers. His
recent devastating attack upon American cap
italism was described by many reviewers as a
defense of the Hoover-Mellon system
ATOW his latest book Lets Get What We
l. y Want" (Simon and Schuster so has been
described as an indiscriminate defense of all the
frauds and fakery of modern advertising. How
far the book is from this may be seen from
such excerpts as the following:
Were l a manufacturer sincerely interested
in cleaning up the industry wherein I operated,
would kick out every publicity hound who was
caught in even white lie We must not
stop with the falling of kid:apers and extor-
TONERS These are merely the melodramatic
fringe of the underworld. They are of little
Importance, as compared with the tens Of
thousands of silent scnenlers who sell you worth
less house lots, trashy lumber. rotten brick fake
silk and spoiled fish. They are merely bright
red spots in a great darkness swarming with
rascaily leaders of religious cults, higher-upS
who take hundreds of millions of dollars yearly
from fools in lotteries and policy games, race
track crooks, white slavers (who are back again
on the ola, old job. makers of female weak
ness pills and lost manhood tonics who swindle
their millions of suckers as boldly as ever, and
hundred lesser breeds without the law"