We cannot refrain, before closing this chapter, from saying a word or two about the incompetency of the large majority of “general practitioners” and “family physicians,” and their evident carelessness, and in some instances, even disgust, in the diagnosis and treatment of this class of cases.
The readers of this may be among that class who think the “family physician” the embodiment of medical wisdom, and that if he has failed to cure the case or pooh-poohed it away, there is no hope. But no one M.D., however learned, knows all about the ills of flesh. In this, as in the legal and other learned professions, a man may practice a score of years, and still know little or nothing about various peculiar cases, because they don’t come under his notice; he has no opportunity to study them practically, and little inducement to theorize. And the class of cases we are now considering, it may surprise the sufferer to know, are deemed by many “regular” physicians beneath their attention. The physician’s calling is a noble one, and he justly takes a high ground regarding his duties. We honor the scruples of our medical friends, but we do not understand nor approve the spirit which leads them to meet these cases with ridicule or evasive answers.
That they do thus meet this class of cases, and that their course is censured by the most eminent of the profession, we have abundant evidence.
One of the best known medical writers of England, F. B. Courtnay, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, etc., says in one of his works (“True and False Spermatorrhœa” pp. 20-21):
“Again, some medical men * * * * affect to consider these cases ‘objectionable,’ and on these grounds seek to avoid them. Others boldly declare, that as most of such cases are the result of unnatural and immoral habits, the sufferers are justly punished for their conduct, and are unworthy of the attention and sympathy of any one.
“Now I conceive this to be a monstrous fallacy; for surely it is entirely beyond the scope of any medical man’s duty to sit in judgment on the applicants for his professional services. According to my idea of professional duty, every man is bound to do all in his power to afford relief to every sufferer who seeks it at his hands, without question as to the causes and nature of the malady.”
Speaking of one of his patients the same writer says:
“He had consulted one of the most eminent members of the medical profession; and this gentleman evidently listened to his narration of his case with great impatience and indifference, and upon the conclusion of his history handed him a prescription, saying: ‘There, take that for six weeks, and if it does not do you any good, I don’t know what will.’ The interpretation the All our Doctors are Regular Graduates, and their Diplomas are Registered in the Office of the County Clerk, City Hall, New York, as required by Law. patient put on his conduct and the remarks was, that he need not trouble himself to call again.
“Now, I have the pleasure of personally knowing the professional gentleman here referred to, and during the last twenty years have been in the constant habit of meeting him in consultation, and I am sure, from my knowledge of him, that his behavior resulted from no intentional unkindness on his part, but solely from the unfortunate feeling of reluctance to attend to such cases, which, both from my own observations and from information obtained from patients, I know to be entertained by too many members of the profession. * * * I am well aware that patients of this class are often most tedious in the narration of their cases; that the details they conceive themselves bound to enter upon are most painful, not to say disgusting, to hear; nevertheless we must, as in many other instances in the discharge of our duties, submit with patience, taking the rough and smooth with the same equanimity, and in the special cases in question, we should endeavor to forget the patient’s vices in his woes.”
Another distinguished physician writes: