LET DOCTORS TELL WHAT THE MATTER IS.
A Plea by Grover Cleveland for a Greater
Degree of Confidence Between
Physician and Patient.
Our only living ex-President, Mr. Cleveland, gave a bit of advice to the doctors a few weeks ago. Speaking before the New York State Medical Society, in session at Albany, he pleaded the rights of the patient to know what his physician was doing to him. He humorously represented himself as attorney for the great army of patients in their appeal to the powerful minority of doctors:
In all seriousness I desire to concede without the least reservation on behalf of the great army of patients that they owe to the medical profession a debt of gratitude which they can never repay, on account of hard, self-sacrificing work done for their benefit and for beneficent results accomplished in their interest.
But at the same time we are inclined to insist that while our doctors have wonderfully advanced in all that increases the usefulness and nobility of their profession, this thing has not happened without some corresponding advance in the intelligent thought and ready information of their patients along the same lines.
We have come to think of ourselves as worthy of confidence in the treatment of our ailments, and we believe if this was accorded to us in greater measure it would be better for the treatment and better for us. We do not claim that we should be called in consultation in all our illnesses, but we would be glad to have a little more explanation of the things done to us.