Year: 1875

! In the full swing of medical practice


tine pace is tremendous. When once
the indefinable stamp of fashion Is sci
upon a doctor every one wants TO engage


his services. You may 90 10 the great


mans house again and again, and the
| great man will not be able to see You.


You may write to his secretary, and the


secretary may make an appointment for


the week after next, but it by no means


follows that he will be able to keep the
appointment. As soon as the clock
strikes two he makes dash for the con-


sulting room, swallows an apology for a


lunch, and you pre- atty observe. him
driving past the windows. In vain the


nnpunctuality is notorious, in vain the


consulting fee is doubled. People are
! determined to have the great man. and


the great man they accordingly get.


They will bring him down POO miles,


though they have to pay 200 guineas for


the Journey. They will have him,


though the patient may be IN drticHio


mortis. For there are circumstances


under which some rich men think that


no consolation is too costly. They will


have him and no one else, although the


case, scientifically considered, may be


as simple as cut finger. Sometimes


they resort to him because the case has


really bafiled the average skill of the
average practitioner and it not unfre-
quently happens that the celebrated


physician makes a diagnosis and sug-
gests remedy that sets his brethren to


rights. On the other hand, the prac-
titioner has his revenge in repeating
stories of extraordinary blunders perpe-
trated by fashionable physicians. But


when the fashionable physician has
really obtained this immense practice
the charm of the practice must depart.
The great physician becomes great
slave. He lives in 4 state of gilded cap
tivity. He cannot call his house his
own, or his hours his own, or his family
his own. He is at the beck and call of
the public. He takes his meals with his
lOins girded; or, rather, he may be
obliged to exist on Liebig's extract for
want of time to partake of solid food.


When the tide of fashion steadily sets
in he is almost submerged beneath the
wave. He bids farewell to leisure,
friends, private life, all that make exist
ence endurable. The guineas accumu-
late, the checks, the bank notes; there
are plethoric investments, lordly in
come. But a mans income for all pur-
poses of enjoyment is not what he gets,
but what he spends. Many men who
imagine that they are in the enjoyment
of a stately income are often, like chill
dren playing with little bits of paper
that come in and little bits of paper that
90 out. There is not so very much use
in man getting f15,OOO year if he
can hardly spend Il 800. But as a rule
we acquit great physicians of any mean
love of the filthy lucre. They hardly
know the sums which roll out of their
pockets when, worn out and harrassed,
they tumble into the uncertain bed from
which the night-bell may arouse them.
They would willingly take less of lucre
for more of leisure. This was strong
idea of the late Sir Henry Holland. He
early fixed the modest limits of his pro-
fessional income at 5000, and would
allow no professional business TO inter-
fere with his three months holiday. He
had his reward in living TO a HISTORIAN
age, with all the reputation of Nestor's
wisdom.


The fashionable physician who reel
procates the firm belief which the Lon
don public have in him with CORES
ponding belief in himself is goaded on
by two considerations of supreme
weight. In the first place he believes
that he is comforting great amount of
good on suffering humanity which no
other physician could render equally
well with himself. In. the next place /
he believes that he is steadily enlarging
the limits of medical science. Each /
patient is book, and his practice repre-
sents the library of medical knowledge. |
He is willing therefore to endure any /
toll, although ne knows how dangerous I
is such toll when carried beyond the .
endurable limit. Such course is /
likely, if he is believer in
the boundless future of medicine, in .
new methods of diagnosis, in new sys-
tens of therapeutics, and has the SEN
thusiasm of humanity in his SOUL
London Globe.