A Boston M. D., who had been in practice fourteen years without
accumulating any property, was about to abandon the profession, and, with
this view, he applied to Fowler, the phrenologist, with the question,
"What pursuit am I best adapted to follow?" Mr. Fowler, with whom he was
unacquainted, said, "The practice of medicine;" but, at the same time, he
assured the doctor that he ought to do business on a _cash_
principle,--"_accipe dum dolet_,"--or employ a collector, as he would
never collect his fees. Acting on this hint, the doctor returned to his
practice, and in a few years was out of debt, and owned a fine residence.
In the matter of collecting fees only he was deficient.
A New York student--if report is true--began earlier to be impressed with
the propriety of getting his fee in advance, as the following will show.
He went before the censors for examination. One of the board was a
well-known penurious, fee-loving doctor, who, looking over the list of
names of the applicants, said,--
"Mr. ----, if a patient came to your office, what would you first do?"
"I would ask him for a fee, sir," was the prompt reply.