Doctors' Commons

“ But when these reforms are witnessed, when there is a Medical Council armed with a more real authority than it at present possesses; when a license to practice cannot be obtained without the threefold qualification; and when an even minimum of qualification is exacted for every licence, is there anything else that remains that any one seriously interested in the welfare of the medical profession, as I may most conscientiously declare myself to be, would like to see done? ”

“ In the absence of any statutes, therefore, limiting the common law right to practise medicine inherent in every person, the term physician may there be applied to any one who publicly announces himself to be a practitioner of the art and undertakes to treat the sick, either for or without reward. The common law knows nothing of systems or schools of medicine. In its eyes, Eclectic, Botanic, Physio-Medical, Electrical, Thompsonian, Homœopath, Reformed, Indian Doctor, Cancer Doctor, Indianopathist, Clairvoyant Doctor and regular physician are alike. ”

“ Hence we have finally medical schools of every grade of honor and of dishonor, some ranking with the best in the world, others periodically raided by the police.
Our democratic custom is to let every school shift for itself. In the eyes of the law, every doctor is a doctor, if he has earned or bought a diploma somewhere—herb-doctor, corn-doctor, faith-healer, electric-healer, all kinds of healers, pass as doctors, and the people must choose for themselves. ”

“ It is perhaps not too much to say that everybody nowadays knows as much about the treatment of disease as a large proportion of the members of the medical profession did in your time. As you may readily suppose, this is a situation which, even apart from the general improvement in health, would enable the people to get on with one physician where a score formerly found business. We doctors are merely specialists and experts on subjects that everybody is supposed to be well grounded in. ”

“ I am entirely unacquainted with the parties who have been at issue in the late suit—I have no bias of any kind, but what must arise in the mind of every man who has any regard for the profession to which he belongs, or who loves truth and fair dealing—I am sure that it is not less for the interests of society at large than for the advancement of medical science, that just principles should regulate all our dealings, both with the public and with each other. ”

“ The progress of scientific Medicine in this country cannot for ever depend upon work done through the Government, or Local Medical Services. It must, as in any other great department of life, depend partly upon private effort, that is, on the work of private practitioners. ”

“ I would also require that patients be treated as men and women, and not as dumb beasts, in the manner of doctoring them; that the doctors should conform to the same rules that they would out of the institution in doctoring free agents. ”

“ In the first place, medicine has outgrown the capacity of any individual doctor; the only adequate private practitioner must have a sound general knowledge of medicine with an expert knowledge of a dozen specialties; that is to say, he must give place to a staff of doctors acting co-ordinately, for the present system, or lack of system, by which a patient wanders at random from private practitioner to specialist, from specialist to specialist ad infinitum, is altogether mischievous. ”

“ It is not merely our object to show that, in common with other gentlemen, medical practitioners should have some general knowledge of the law, without which they cannot in any scene of life discharge properly their duty either to the public or themselves; but to demonstrate, that there are many and intricate branches of law, in which the physician or surgeon, by competent knowledge, may not only materially serve himself in reputation, and his patients by advice, but also render important benefit to the community. ”

“ In adverting to the conflicting views and differences of opinion, that exist and have ever existed in the practice of the healing art, it is not to call in question the value of learned, skilful and experienced physicians, but merely to show the error of attempting, in the present state of medical science, to recognize, as matter of law, any one system of practice, or of declaring that the practitioner who follows a particular system is a doctor, and that one who pursues a different method is not. ”

“ Neither can the legislature, in whose power it is to do much more for preserving the public health than can ever be done by the Faculty, exert that power with propriety, and to the greatest advantage, without some degree of medical knowledge. ”

“ It is true in an even more marked and undeniable fashion that the profession of medicine, by virtue of its public and social aspects, is distinguished in a marked way from a calling in life in which a man might feel that what he did was strictly his own business, subject to nobody's scrutiny, or inquiry, or interference. The physician's public obligation is in part prescribed by the laws of the State which regulate medical practice, and in very large part by the professional codes which have been evolved by the profession itself for its own guidance. ”

“ The object of this Course of Lectures is to communicate such a knowledge of medicine, and its collateral sciences, as is absolutely necessary in the practice of your profession. Questions of the highest interest, in a social point of view, are constantly occurring in our various courts of justice, some affecting the rights of property, some the health and comforts of whole communities, and some the character, the liberty, or the lives of individuals, the determination of which depends almost entirely on evidence derived from the medical sciences. ”

“ We perceive nothing in the statute which indicates an intention of the legislature to deprive one of any of his rights. No one has a right to practise medicine without having the necessary qualifications of learning and skill; and the statute only requires that whoever assumes, by offering to the community his services as a physician, that he possesses such learning and skill, shall present evidence of it by a certificate or license from a body designated by the State as competent to judge of his qualifications. ”

“ Anybody who pleases to get a little smattering of medical terms is not now at liberty to practice on the bodies of citizens, as in your day. None but students who have passed the severe tests of the schools, and clearly proved their vocation, are permitted to practice. Then, too, you will observe that there is nowadays no attempt of doctors to build up their practice at the expense of other doctors. There would be no motive for that. For the rest, the doctor has to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau, and if he is not reasonably well employed, work is found for him. ”

“ If it is not right to make a man a fellow because he holds a first-class place as a practitioner of medicine as the Royal Society has done since I have known it, let us abolish the practice. But then let us also in justice refuse to recognise the half-and-half claims, those of the people who are third-rate as practitioners, and hang on to the skirts of science without doing anything in it. ”

“ After the repeal of the old Medical Acts, and before the enactment of the law of 1874, the New York Court of Common Pleas had to define who was a physician or doctor, and it said the words simply meant, “a person who made it his business to practise physic; and it was wholly immaterial to what school of medicine he belonged, or whether he belonged to any. The legal signification of the term doctor means simply a practitioner of physic. The system pursued is immaterial. The law has nothing to do with the merits of particular systems.” ”

“ It may be safely asserted that the chief obstacle which the profession has to encounter, in the attempt to harmonize the hitherto conflicting systems of medicine, is the existence of so violent a prejudice among the people in favor of one school or the other that the doctor's income is liable to suffer as an effect of any concession to his liberal convictions.
When an unknown physician appears in any community, and solicits a share of public patronage, what does the inquiring public first demand to know concerning him? ”

“ In every progressive State, school doctors have now been appointed. It is a sound principle that the school doctor should not be engaged in private practice, but that he should [203] also be physician to the poor-law authority. The institution of the school physician is, however, of value only if a skilled and detailed examination of the individual children is undertaken, and if steps are taken to secure that the medical advice given in individual cases is actually carried out. ”

“ In medicine, on the other hand, though there are works which contain the principles of the science, they have none of that fixed and undisputed authority, which standard works on other subjects are apt to have. There is therefore a contempt of authority in matters of opinion in medicine tolerated by the community, and even by the profession, which is not tolerated in regard to any other subject. ”

“ The means which they would afford, to increase our knowledge of the medical art, if they really were sanctuaries of science, as well as of sorrow, are incalculable! Again, I am far from thinking lightly of the influence which provincial medical men have in society; but I also believe that, as a body, provincial medical practitioners do not hold the rank in the community to which they may attain, and to which it will at all times be the effect of our association to stimulate them to aspire. ”

“ The most prominent and most general object of the advocates of Medical Reform appears to be a uniformity of qualification, to be tested by a public examination, in all the candidates for a license to practise medicine. ”

“ Before the common law every one undertaking to treat the sick professionally, and as the exercise of his vocation, is legally a physician. He has the rights of one, and when he assumes those rights the law lays upon him the heavy burdens and res­pons­i­bil­i­ties of the profession. It is, of course, far otherwise if any statute prescribes particular qualifications for the practice of the profession and one undertakes to discharge its duties without such qualifications. ”

“ Whether or not a physician is the official health protector of the community, a physician there should be who can be reached readily by those who need him, and who should be required to produce a certificate of thorough training in both medicine and surgery. If such a medical practitioner does not establish himself in the district voluntarily, the community might well afford to employ such a physician on a salary and make him responsible for the health of all. ”

“ There is perhaps no profession more properly open to such regulation than that which embraces the practitioners of medicine. Dealing, as its followers do, with the lives and health of the people, and requiring for its successful practice general education and technical skill, as well as good character, it is obviously one of those vocations where the power of the state may be exerted to see that only properly qualified persons shall undertake its responsible and difficult duties. ”

“ And it is for this reason that it is for the interest of the community to have a proper standard of medical education maintained much more even than it is for the interest of the profession itself. For so little are they qualified to judge on medical subjects, and so much are they obliged to take medical practice upon trust, that it is important for them, that they should have all the benefit of the safeguards the requisitions of our professional organizations throw around them. ”

“ In despotic countries, the edict of a sovereign may fix the standard; but in the United States, that standard must be settled by public opinion, and the greatest good of the greatest number should be the basis upon which it is predicated. Physicians will never be too well qualified. Let the standard be as high as will best promote the safety and welfare of society, and let all good men unite to sustain it. ”

“ Ladies and gentlemen, you may take any country in the world, I do not care where you go, and if they do not employ doctors, you will find they will beat communities that employ them, all the time. Who is the real doctor? That man who knows by the Spirit of revelation what ails an individual, and by the same Spirit knows what medicine to administer. That is the real doctor, the others are quacks.
But to the text. We want to see a community organized in which every person will be industrious, faithful and prudent. What will you do with the children? ”

“ From what has been said, the necessity will be evident to introduce into the council those physicians who have made health, and particularly the public health, a special study; and to join with them chemists, and, above all, manufacturing chemists, because what would many of those persons, whose life has been passed in hospitals and the exclusive study of medicine, be before a steam engine? It is clear that they would often be deceived by those adroit and skilful manufacturers who would have an interest in concealing the truth. ”

“ It is, I suppose, to the doctorate, from which he shrinks, that he owes his right of practising physick. A doctor of Medicine is a physician under the protection of the laws, and by the stamp of authority. The physician, who is not a Doctor, usurps a profession, and is authorised only by himself to decide upon health and sickness, and life and death. That this gentleman is a Doctor, his diploma makes evident; a diploma not obtruded upon him, but obtained by solicitation, and for which fees were paid. ”