One leading physician says medical treatment has little beneficial effect on pneumonia; another claims to be able to cure it, and lets the friends of his patient rely entirely on his medicine in the most desperate cases. Another says the main reliance should be heat. Another says ice-packs. Another says Antiphlogistine. Another says, “All those clay preparations are frauds, and the only safe way to treat pneumonia is by blood letting.” Thus it goes, and this is only a sample of contradictions that arise in the treatment of diseases.
Nor is the above an overdrawn picture. Most of it was from the journal of the editor who said he refused to send it to a layman who had sent his money in advance. But all that same stuff has been hashed and rehashed to the people through the sources I have already mentioned. There are not only these evidences of inconsistencies to edify (?) the people, but constantly recurring examples of incompetency and pretensions.
There is no doubt a middle ground in all this, but it is not evident to the casual observer. If the true physician would honestly admit his limitations to the intelligent laity, much of this muddle would be avoided. While by such a course he may occasionally temporarily lose a patient, in the end both the public and profession would gain. The time has gone by to “assume an air of infallibility toward the public.”
CHAPTER V.
THE EXPERT WITNESS AND PROPRIETARY MEDICINES.
The “Great Nerve Specialist”—The Professional Witness a Jonah—The “Railway Spine”—Is it Lack of Fairness and Honesty or Lack of Skill and Learning?—Destruction of Fine Herds of Cattle Without Compensation—Koch’s Dictum and Denial—Koch’s Tuberculin—The Serum Tribe—Stupendous Sale of Nostrums—Druggist’s Arguments—Use of Proprietary Medicines Stimulates Sale of Nostrums.
I wonder what the patrons of the sanitarium of the “great nerve specialist” thought of his display of knowledge of the nervous system when he was on the witness stand in a recent notorious case? A lawyer tangled him up completely, and showed that the doctor had no accurate knowledge of the anatomy of the nervous system. When asked the origin of the all-important pneumogastric nerve, he thought it originated in a certain segment of the spinal cord! This noted “specialist” was made perfectly contemptible, and the whole profession must have blushed in shame at the spectacle presented. And that spectacle was not unnoticed by the intelligent laity.
The professional witness has in most cases been a Jonah to the profession. It is about as easy to get the kind of testimony you want from a professional witness in a suit for damages for personal injuries as it is to get a doctor’s certificate to get out of working your poll-tax, or a certificate of physical soundness to carry fraternal life insurance.