Medical “Steerers” and Their Work. Method by Which Many Physicians Obtain Patients—Men Who Make a Business of Directing Invalids Where to Go for Treatment—Commercial Diplomats—Their Style of Work—Large Incomes—How Sufferers Are Approached—The Kind of Talk That Wins the Confidence of the Sufferer—Directing the Victim to a Physician—Landing the Patient in the Doctor’s Office—The Steerer’s Commission—How He Protects Himself and Insures Square Treatment by the Doctor—Opportunities for Obtaining Patients—Leading Hotels Favorite Places of Operation—Old Brace Faro Game Worked in New Form—Women Steerers and Their Methods[187]

CHAPTER XV.

What Should the Physician Do? Various Remedies Proposed for Existing Conditions—Too Many Doctors in the Land—Not Enough Patients to Go Around—What the Medical Colleges Are Doing—Over 5,000 Doctors Made Every Year in the Strictly Ethical Schools Alone—Temptations of Young Physicians—What Men Like Dr. Evans and Dr. King Have to Say—Prominent Practitioners Endorse Division of Fees as an Act of Justice—Prof. George Burman Foster on the Profession as Allied to Business—No Reason Why There Should Be Any Distinction Between the Two[195]

CHAPTER XVI.

Corporation Doctors. Evils of the Contract Plan—How It Injures the Regular Practitioner and the Contract Doctor Himself—Miserly Economy by Corporations—Disastrous Competition Among Physicians—Life Insurance Examiners and Their Lack of Business Sense—Moral as Well as Medical Honesty Dwarfed by the Corporation System—Contract Doctors Expected to Hide the Truth to Retain Their Jobs—Beggarly Salaries Paid by Corporations—Practice Wrongfully Diverted from Doctors Entitled to It—Collusion Between Corporation Doctors and Claim Agents—Sick and Injured Employees Often Induced to Sign Away Their Rights by Misrepresentation or Intimidation—The Drawbacks of Promiscuous Fraternizing[207]

PREFACE

There are some methods explained in this book which the author does not endorse. They are printed because they are necessary to a thorough understanding of the subject. Newspapers publish reports of murders, but this does not imply endorsement of the crimes.

Aside from these features there are many things which the practicing physician may read and follow to his advantage. The introductory chapter by Dr. Lydston will be found to be of special interest.

THE AUTHOR.