"Of those in the medical profession, more than two percent of us are doctors of medicine. There are many more specialists. For every fifty, or less, adult Martians, or for 25 couples and their families, we have one general practitioner and one nurse. If we feel that more are needed, we increase the number of medical students as required.
"These general practitioners are responsible for the prevention of sickness, and for their cure. They can always call to their assistance specialists.
"In the dental and other body-curing professions we have no less than one doctor for every two hundred of our inhabitants with the same responsibilities as the general practitioners. I understand you have one to every 800 persons in the United States, the highest rate of any Earth nation.
"We have specialization in industries and in professions. Our system tends to make each one of us expert in his line, so that we not only improve the quality but also increase the quantity of production and services. Earth men, unlike us, cannot produce so many experts because nearly half of your population are wasting their time either in non-essential work, 'easy' jobs, or living at the expense of others.
"On our planet everyone, from the day he graduates from our schools to the time he becomes infirm and helpless, keeps fully occupied.
"Old cities, which I remember, have been totally destroyed and reconstructed nearly every generation, or sooner. This constant installation of new and improved living appliances and the changes in our general way of life have created for us a bee-hive of energy, industry and activity in creating better and safer patterns of living. Our young or aged like on your earth do not listlessly hang around homes, barrooms, or streets, dying before their time from the lack of physical and mental activity. We all aim toward a more or less creative and realizable goal, whose advancement contributes to our social good.
"Should it become irksome or monotonous for a person to do the same thing all the time, as in many instances it does, he or she may take theoretical and practical courses in other endeavors under the tutelage of our expert aged. Many of us remain all our lives in the same professions and crafts. Our work is not wearisome, because we put in but four hours a day, and have plenty of time for study, music, recreations, pleasures, rest, and religious worship. The poorest worker of our first grade is better compensated and is happier than your richest man. Please contrast these two; and I leave it to you to make your own judgment.
"Let us take at first the parvenu of your earth, who may have been poor and undernourished at one time. He works all day and part of the night under terrific high pressure, always scheming, worrying that someone will steal his invention, trade, or customers, or get his contracts cancelled or broken. He is under constant fear and excitement and spends sleepless nights. He is even tempted to commit unethical or even criminal acts to succeed.
"Due to his hard work, nervous tension and emotional stress, he may become an insomniac, drug, alcohol, coffee, or tobacco addict. These habits are contributive factors to digestive stomach troubles, high blood pressure, irritableness, heart diseases, cancer, and early death.
"When he has acquired his ill gotten gains, he worries how to keep them. He is afraid for his very life; many of your rich people are afraid to sleep alone at night. He surrounds himself with all kinds of safeguards and bodyguards. Why, a great many of them are afraid of their own immediate families! His old age is not secure. It would take me too long to tell you how our lowest grade members or first grade degree members live. When you see them in our city life you will agree that your richest man would immediately change places with one of them.