"If you were a working-man I should send you to the hospital and you would be kept in bed till you were well. But if you choose to sail on the Lusitania you must bear the pain. Now, as you are here, you might as well let me overhaul you."
Then, as before, the same precision, the same delicacy of touch, the same rapidity, nothing hurried, nothing missed; his examination a work of art as well as of science. Then he began to talk of other things; and again, and even stronger, was the impression of being in contact with a master mind. Seldom have I spent a more stimulating hour. He was, I found later, Mr. Henry Morris, Consulting Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital and President of the Royal College of Surgeons. In other words, Mr. Henry Morris, about whom I ought to have known, but did not, was, and is, in the very front rank of his profession. His eminence has since been recognized and rewarded by the King, and he is now Sir Henry Morris, Bart. I suppose even a Republican may admit that if titles are to be conferred they are well conferred on men eminent in science.
II
Sir Thomas Barlow has since been elected President of the Royal College of Physicians in succession to Sir Douglas Powell. This is the Blue Ribbon of the profession, perhaps a greater honour than a knighthood or baronetcy, though the knighthood or the baronetcy is from the King, the source and fountain of all such distinctions. But the Presidency of the Royal College of Physicians is conferred by the Profession itself. The Fellows of the College, who number some three hundred, are the choosing body. They vote by ballot and the man whom they elect is the man by whom they wish to be represented before the public; the man by whom they are content to be judged. They say, in effect, of him whom they choose: "This is the Head of the Medical Profession for the time being." The public, which really and rightly has much more confidence in the judgment of the doctors upon each other than in any lay reputation, accepts that. When you say of a physician, "He is a doctors' doctor," you have said about all you can.
The President of the Royal College of Physicians has, no doubt, duties which are not medical. He has executive, administrative, consultative duties; and the very important duty of dining with the Lord Mayor, the Corporation of the City of London, and the City Companies. In discharging these latter functions he incurs, I suppose, less risk than most men incur. But risk or no risk these feasts have to be faced. Between all Corporations, Guilds, and Colleges there is a kind of freemasonry. They have points of contact, of sympathy, and are likely to stand by each other in difficulties. Whether dinners were invented as a test and standard of friendship, I cannot say. But go to which of them you like, you will find a collection of the Heads of other Companies, Colleges, etc.; not all, perhaps, dinner-giving, but all willing victims of others' hospitality.
The Royal College of Physicians is also a Senate or Parliament; with powers of legislation and of professional guidance and discipline. The Fellows of this College are Trustees for the whole Profession. The President has an authority of his own, depending in part on statutes and on custom, in part on his personal authority. In the latter Sir Thomas Barlow will not be found wanting. It is not the less, it is perhaps the greater, for the genial good nature which accompanies it. I said to him once:
"Sir Thomas, you have one quality which must be a great drawback to your success."
"Dear me, what is that?"
"When you come into a room your patient at once thinks himself better, and even doubts whether he need have sent for you at all, and so gets well much quicker than he ought. It's taking money out of your pocket."
"Very good. I'll take care you don't get well too soon."