When I contemplated writing a book, which I hoped to make a vade mecum for those who felt interested in the subject, I felt that it would be a duty which I should reluctantly perform, for it would be a criticism on the status of the medical profession of this country. I was convinced that whatever I said that would lower the tone of the profession in the estimation of my countrymen would naturally reflect on me as unfavorably as upon any other member, for I never claimed to be anything else but an American physician, and, as such, I have an ambition to elevate the rank and file to honor and respectability.
There is also a motive that underlies a work of this nature which should appear justifiable to the author. It is absolutely necessary that side-lights should be thrown into dark corners and recesses that are usually screened from public notice. If there is a growing deterioration in methods of proficiency and morals, the public should know it, for who is the greater villain, he who trifles with human life through officious ignorance and venturous operations, or the midnight assassin, who, under cover of darkness, waylays his unwary victim? The title “doctor,” from the Latin doceo, “I teach,” has a halo of learning that it derives from the original significance that was attached to it when it was first sanctioned at Bologna University, about the middle of the twelfth century, where it first passed into the faculty of divinity. It was afterwards introduced into the universities of Northern Europe, and remained ever since a degree of distinction in theology, law, philosophy, and medicine. In the German universities doctor implies also a license to teach within the university, as a privat-docent.
When we now consider that no person can matriculate in a German university who has not graduated from the gymnasium or high school, it is clear that, under the above conditions, the title “doctor” guarantees that the possessor is an educated person, not only of the high school, but added thereto is the accomplishment in the specialty of which he holds the doctor degree.
What may a “doctor degree” mean in this country? The title of an illiterate and utterly incompetent person, who was by natural environment and occupation a teamster, saloon keeper, barber, tailor, or patent-medicine vender, etc.
If a woman, she may be retraced to an ignorant nurse, midwife, or quacksalver, the conceited wife of a man who indulges her in the freak of “learning to be a doctor,” for she had demonstrated her genius for the profession by successfully treating a case of measles, which started the doctor’s bee a-buzzing in her bonnet, until she passed through a medical college; last, but not least, are the winsome daughters of the millionaire or successful business man, who imagine themselves too smart to make useful housewives and good mothers.
There is not a medical college in this State, and there are few, if any, in the United States, that would not eagerly take in all of this material, and guarantee to them beforehand, that they can graduate as medicinæ doctor in twelve months to three years, a five months’ course being considered a year.
The above comparison is a disgraceful commentary on the degree of doctor in this country, and the public should learn to know the difference.
“The United States and Its Doctors” is the title of an editorial in the July number of the New York Medical Record, and it says: “There is certainly no more curious social phenomenon than that of the extraordinary popularity of the medical profession in this country as a means of securing a livelihood.
“This subject is one that is often dwelt upon, but we doubt if many even yet realize the grotesque misproportion which medicine in the United States holds to other bread-winning occupations. Here are some of the naked facts in the matter:—
“France has 38,000,000 of population, 11,995 doctors, while it graduates 624 medical students in one year. Germany has 45,000,000 of population, about 30,000 doctors, and graduates 935 students in one year. The United States has about 60,000,000 of population, 100,000 doctors, 13,091 medical students, and graduates 3,740 students in one year.