Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

CHAPTER I.

THE REASON WHY.

I see a large field of usefulness which has not been covered by competent authorities. I propose, therefore, to offer a plain, simple statement of the most common causes of physical suffering in women, and a simple and reliable method of home or domestic treatment, to be carried out by the patients themselves, which, in the great majority of cases, is easily applied.

The first nine years of my professional life was an untiring and incessant devotion to the arduous demands of a large family practice, after which I decided to go to Europe, and there prosecute such studies in two German universities as my experience as a practitioner had fully convinced me to be of the greatest practical and scientific importance; hence, I offer no excuse or apology for aught I may say on a subject with which I have taken especial pains to familiarize myself. Having in a measure established my identity, I am more fully prepared to proceed in a more congenial way.

In the realm of thought there is no monopoly, and it is, after all, at the bar of public opinion that a final judgment must decide the merits of my course.

The question is not what to teach, but whom to teach. This may seem, at first sight, an easy matter to determine, but a more careful inquiry will show the complexity.

The platform of a medical college is considered by some the only legitimate place from which a medical man may impart his knowledge, but here the opportunity is limited, notwithstanding the abnormally great number of these institutions. This, however, is not the only reason. Medical colleges are becoming so numerous, that they should be discouraged by all honest and high-minded medical men, because in this country they are private institutions, with very few exceptions, and subserve sinister purposes, in furthering the interests of their promoters either as advertising schemes or money-making institutions, or both.

Of course they are incorporated under State laws, which make them quasi-public institutions, but the State exercises no authority over them, and their self-constituted professors conduct them to suit their own private ends. They are not limited by law, nor is a required course for their students imperative, so that the public have no guarantee of the fitness or competency of their graduates. There is, also, an unhealthy rivalry among our colleges for students, improper material is taken in, and correspondingly poor material is turned out; this in turn causes a rivalry among their graduates in making spoil of the sick.

Every self-respecting and competent medical man has an utter contempt for these doctor mills. This will never be different in this country until we follow the plan of European governments, and make medical colleges State institutions, and their professors officers of the State, with liberal salaries.