It requires no great mental effort to see the terrible load the profession is carrying—self-inflicted, and often for fallaciously selfish motives, it is true, but none the less heavy. The college and free hospital may be the professional “old man of the sea,” but so much the worse for the medical Sinbad. Whatever the explanation, private practice is on a par with dispensary practice with regard to the impositions practiced on the doctor. It is safe to say that, of the sum total of surgical and medical patients of all kinds and social conditions under treatment in Chicago at the present time, over one-half are paupers—honest or dishonest. Pay the doctor for the work involved in this wasted and misapplied charity, and the medical profession would plunge into a sea of prosperity that might swamp it. And it is not only the rank and file of the profession that suffers. Ye celebrated professor, reaching out for glory, yea, into infinite space, clutching frantically at everything in sight, no matter how profitless—providing the other fellow doesn’t get the case—often defeats his own ends. And the great man dies, and is buried, and we take up a collection for his widow, to meet his funeral expenses, and sell his library—six feet of earth make all men of a size. Sic transit gloria mundi.
And when, like dog, he’s had his day,
And his poor soul hath passed away,
Some friendly scribe in tearful mood
Will tell the world how very good
The dear departed doctor was—
And thus win for himself applause.
One of the most potent causes of professional poverty is the mania of the doctor for a pretense of well-doing. He exhibits this in many ways. One of the most pernicious is an affectation of contempt for money. This it is that often impels him to delay the rendering of his accounts. Oftentimes his patient offers to pay all or part of his bill. With a lordly and opulent wave of his marasmic hand the doctor says, “Oh, that’s all right; any time’ll do.” And the triple-plated medical imbecile goes on his way with a dignified strut that ill befits the aching void in his epigastric region, and is decidedly out of harmony with the befringed extremities of his trousers. And then the doctor apologizes to himself on the ground of a philanthropy that is but the rankest and most asinine egotism en masque.
When will the doctor understand that payment deferred maketh the patient dishonest? When will he consider the necessities of his wife and children as outweighing the feelings of the patient who owes him money? When will he be a man, and not a time-server and truckler to appearances? He would take the money did he not fear the patient might suspect that his doctor was not prosperous. He wishes the patient to think that the doctor and his family dine with the chameleons, or are fed by ravens. Yet the medical Elijah waiteth in vain for the manna-bearing birds—they know him for what he is, a counterfeit prophet who vainly yearns for the flesh-pots of Egypt—who has a ponderous and all-consuming desire for pabulum, and a microcephalic capacity for finance.
Doctors are supposed to be keen judges of human nature. I often think this is absolutely without foundation. Defective knowledge in this direction is a very expensive luxury to the medical profession. The confidence man and sharper cannot fool the average doctor into buying a gold brick, perhaps, but they can come very near it. The oily-tongued and plausible man with a scheme finds the doctor his easiest prey. The doctor has often hard enough work to wring a few dollars out of his field of labor, and it might be supposed that it would be difficult to get those dollars away from him, but no, it’s only too easy. He bites at everything that comes along—he often rises to a bare hook. Mining stocks, irrigation and colonization schemes, expensive books that he doesn’t want, will never need and couldn’t find time to read if he would, histories of his town or state in which his biography and picture will appear for $100—proprietary medicine schemes, stock in publications of various kinds; he bites at everything going—he has embonpoint cerebrale. Oh, but the doctor is easy! I have very painful memories. The best investment I ever made was when I paid a fellow for painting a sign for the door of my consultation room, reading: “Notice—Persons with schemes will please keep out. I have some of my own to promote.”