What then is to be done?
Fortunately we have not to begin absolutely from the beginning: we
already have, in the Medical Officer of Health, a sort of doctor who is
free from the worst hardships, and consequently from the worst vices,
of the private practitioner. His position depends, not on the number
of people who are ill, and whom he can keep ill, but on the number of
people who are well. He is judged, as all doctors and treatments should
be judged, by the vital statistics of his district. When the death rate
goes up his credit goes down. As every increase in his salary depends on
the issue of a public debate as to the health of the constituency under
his charge, he has every inducement to strive towards the ideal of a
clean bill of health. He has a safe, dignified, responsible, independent
position based wholly on the public health; whereas the private
practitioner has a precarious, shabby-genteel, irresponsible, servile
position, based wholly on the prevalence of illness.
It is true, there are grave scandals in the public medical service. The
public doctor may be also a private practitioner eking out his earnings
by giving a little time to public work for a mean payment. There are
cases in which the position is one which no successful practitioner will
accept, and where, therefore, incapables or drunkards get automatically
selected for the post, faute de mieux; but even in these cases the
doctor is less disastrous in his public capacity than in his private
one: besides, the conditions which produce these bad cases are doomed,
as the evil is now recognized and understood. A popular but unstable
remedy is to enable local authorities, when they are too small to
require the undivided time of such men as the Medical Officers of our
great municipalities, to combine for public health purposes so that each
may share the services of a highly paid official of the best class; but
the right remedy is a larger area as the sanitary unit.