“Well, a bit,” replied the man. “I was in ‘Frisco this day fortnight, and I’ll be in Egypt on this day week.”
“I knew by the look of those gentlemen that they had travelled,” said the loud man, turning to his group. “I believe in the value of travel. I travel myself—just like those gentlemen. Yes; a week ago I was at Bradford. Here I am at Liverpool to-day, and Heaven knows where I may be next week—at Manchester, may be.”
So far as I can gather, the impression seems to be pretty general that some divergence of opinion is by no means impossible among physicians in their diagnosis of a case. Doctors themselves seem to have at last become aware of the fact that the possibility of a difference being manifested in their views on some cases is now and again commented on by the irresponsible layman. An eminent member of that profession which makes a larger demand than any other upon the patience, the judgment, and the self-sacrifice of those who practise it, defended, a short time ago, in the course of a very witty speech, the apparent want of harmony between the views of physicians on some technical points. He said that perhaps he might not be going too far if he remarked that occasionally in a court of law the technical evidence given by two doctors seemed at first sight not to agree. This point was readily conceded by the audience; and the professor then went on to say that surely the absence of this mechanical agreement on all points should be accepted as powerful testimony to the conscientiousness of the profession. One of the rarest of charges brought against physicians was that of collusion. In fact, while he believed that, if put to it, his memory would be quite equal to recall some instances of a divergence of opinion between doctors in a witness-box, he did not think that he could remember a single case in which a charge of collusion against two members of the profession had been brought home to them.
Most sensible people will, I am persuaded, take this view of a matter which has called for comment in all ages. It is because doctors are so singularly sensitive that, sooner than run the chance of being accused of acting in collusion in any case, they now and again have been known to express views that were—well, not absolutely in harmony the one with the other.
The distinguished physician who made so reasonable a defence of the profession which he adorns, told me that it was one of his early instructors who made that excellent summary of the relative values of medical attendance:—
“I have no hesitation in saying that it’s not better to be attended by a good doctor than a bad doctor; but I won’t go the length of saying that it’s not better to be attended by no doctor at all than by either.”