_An Address delivered Before the University of
Maryland Medical Association,
March 16, 1909_,
BY GUY STEELE, M. D.
Of Cambridge, Md.
A celebrated divine once said that the most difficult part of a sermon
was the selection of a proper text. I must thank the President of this
society for saving me this trouble. When, however, Webster's is
consulted for a proper definition of the word "Ethics," and it is found
to mean "The science of human duty," it would seem that he has chosen a
text almost too comprehensive for the limits of a short paper, even when
restricted to the "ethics of the medical profession." It may not be out
of place to thank him for the honor he has conferred upon me by deeming
one whose student days are scarce twelve years behind him worthy of
presenting this subject to you, for a paper on this topic is almost of
itself a sermon, and we naturally look up to those, whose many years of
experience and works have brought them prominence, for instruction in
morals and duty. Still, I take it, whether young or old, all of us like
to preach on fitting occasions, and not the least part of the
inspiration to effort is the character of the audience. My invitation
was to read a paper before the Clinical Society, and incidentally I was
told that some of the students had expressed a desire to be present.
Little, however, did I anticipate such a flattering attendance from them
when examination time so nearly approached, and it is evidence of a most
commendable spirit when they can bring themselves to take even an hour
of their most valuable time from study to devote to a consideration of
the moral duties and responsibilities which shall be theirs when they
shall have passed through the April ordeal. Much that I have to say
tonight will be directed especially to them, and if they or their elders
in the profession may in the years to come look back upon this night
with the recollection that I have more forcibly brought to mind some of
the old and half-forgotten maxims and axioms that make for a better and
purer professional life, I will have been more than repaid for the time
I have expended in the preparation of this paper.
In discussing the ethics of the general practitioner towards his
patient, I would have you remember that your first and most important
duty is to give to those who trust you the very best that is in you.
To you young men, full of enthusiasm for your new profession, and imbued
with Utopian ideas of the mission which you have undertaken for the good
of mankind, it would seem almost foolish for me to mention this as the
first advice I would offer you. But I think I can see a smile of
understanding flit across the faces of those who have for some years
fought the battle of life, and who have had the wire edge of early
ambitions and determinations blunted by contact with unappreciative
patients and unworthy professional competition and the daily incidents
of a busy life. They know that it is very easy to feel too tired, or be
too busy, or have some other engrossing affair in mind which prevents
that entire devotion to duty which all admit is essential to success in
medicine. Half of success in life or in any undertaking is due to a
successful start; therefore, let me ask you to firmly determine on one
or two fixed principles, and to stick to those principles through thick
and thin. Be fully assured that no halfway devotion to your profession
will ever bring you prominence or success. The time-worn phrase that
"Medicine is a jealous mistress" loses none of its truth by frequent
repetition. Recently I saw in a prominent medical journal the advice
given that doctors should take a prominent part in politics and bring
themselves forward in other ways, and that thereby in some way unknown
to me the glory of the profession would be enhanced, and much benefit
result to the community. Far be it from me to discourage a proper civic
spirit and a proper interest in public affairs, or to advise an
avoidance of any duty which good citizenship imposes upon every honest,
patriotic man, whatever his business or profession. But I take it that
no more baneful, no more dangerous advice can be given to our young
professional man than this. You cannot be successful in both politics
and medicine, and while we can point to one member of our profession in
the United States Senate, and to some notable exceptions in our own
State, where men of our profession have, for a time, abandoned medicine
and returned to it to win success, you can rest assured that the medical
politician possesses little beyond a musty diploma to remind the world
that he was once of our cult. So don't be a halfway politician and
halfway doctor. Success in either field will take all of your best
effort and all of your time.
What I have said of politics will apply, though not quite so forcibly,
to any other engrossing business or pleasure. Time forbids me to
elaborate this idea, and in concluding it let me say that you cannot be
a successful politician, merchant, sport or what not and carry medicine
as a side line.
It may seem useless to remind you that, in order to give the best that
is in you, you must keep abreast with what is new and best in
professional literature and scientific progress. You all have determined
to be students, and even those who pride themselves on having passed
through the University without having opened a book have a half-formed
desire to really know something beyond spotting a possible examination
question, and when once examinations are over, and they have reluctantly
withdrawn themselves from the delights of the city by gaslight for the
pine woods and mountain trail, they will burn the midnight oil and
browse diligently through their musty tomes. May I tell you that nothing
is harder than to find time for study. Many of us, even though city men,
with the best and latest literature at our elbows, are ashamed to think
how thoroughly we abhor the sight of a medical book or magazine, and how
easily we can persuade ourselves that we are too tired and stale, and so
engrossed during the day with scenes of sickness and suffering that we
must have our brief hours of release from duty for recreation. We do
need our hours of relaxation and rest and our too infrequent holidays,
and they are absolutely essential to good health and good work. Don't,
however, confuse the words rest and relaxation with sloth and idleness,
and don't think your professional work completed when your round of
daily visits is done. Indeed, if you would know medicine you must woo
your mistress in the small hours of the night, and in many of the
leisure moments that the day may bring you.
Much has been spoken of the man who practices by common sense, and whose
school has been that of observation and hard experience. A most worthy
brother he is at times, and many are his friends and wonderful his
success. But if the science of medicine is to advance, more is required
for progress than mere common sense, and observation untrained and
experience undirected and unguided by the observation and experience of
others will rarely discover a new bacillus or elaborate a side chain
theory. So, to be truly ethical in the duty you owe to give the best
that is in you, you should be reading men. Take one or more of the
medical journals. Buy for reference the latest and best text-books. Make
the opportunity to read the daily papers and something of current
literature. A well-rounded man can afford to do nothing less. Besides
the information you obtain, it pays in the respect of the community to
have the reputation of being posted in your profession. Often the
country man simply hasn't time at home to read. A busy life, with its
miles upon miles of dusty roads to travel, precludes all chance for the
easy chair. Then cultivate the habit of reading while driving. Many are
the useful and happy hours I have spent in my carriage with my journals
and magazines. I am frank to say that, but for this habit, I never could
have found time for one-half of the reading I have done. Last year I was
somewhat amused when a most worthy, well-educated and well-posted man
summed up his opinion of another by saying that he was one of those who
read magazines in his carriage. If I mistake not, this indictment was
brought against the late Dr. Miltenberger, who as a young and busy man
was forced to form this habit, and I could but think that, could I die
with half the honor and respect and love that were his, I could plead
guilty to even this mark of devotion to my profession and desire to
advance in it.
Would you be ethical in giving the best that is in you to your patients,
you must give ungrudgingly of your time. This may again seem a useless
piece of advice, and yet almost all of us are familiar with the man
whose motto is "Veni, Vidi, Vici"--"I came, I saw, I conquered." This
intuitive diagnostician is by no means a myth. The man who comes in a
rush and goes in a rush, and who, with pencil in one hand and
prescription pad in the other, feels the pulse while the thermometer is
under the tongue; who sees at a glance, without necessity of personal or
family history or of physical examination, just what is the matter, and
who, giving four or five prescriptions, rushes out, trusting that
something in his shotgun therapy may hit the enemy. Perhaps the next day
he prescribes four or five more remedies or combination of remedies, and
should the patient begin to improve, prides himself that he has made and
confirmed a diagnosis by his experimental therapy. Is it necessary for
me to say that no ethical man with any regard for the rights of his
patients and his obligation to his profession can really practice
medicine in this manner? The plea that you are too busy to give the
proper time to your cases is no justification for your neglect. Anything
less than a careful inquiry into family and personal history, followed
by a painstaking and thorough physical examination, is unjust to your
patient and unjust to yourself. No ethical man can give the best that is
in him by doing less than this. If you haven't the time to do your work
thoroughly, make a clean breast of the matter and take fewer cases. But
you will say that a man, even in large practice, cannot afford to give
any of it up. He needs every dollar that honestly comes his way, and to
say that he hasn't time for his work is only another way of throwing
practice into the hands of a rival. This is, indeed, a proposition hard
to solve, as most of us do need every dollar that honestly comes our
way; but if our work is only half done, if we have neglected some
important point in diagnosis, and thereby omitted some equally important
measure in treatment, have our dollars been honestly earned? Let us
start out with and carry in mind this axiom of a truly ethical life,
that success in medicine cannot be measured by commercial success; that,
while no sensible man can neglect the business side of his vocation, or
refuse to demand and collect just compensation for his service, such
compensation cannot be measured in dollars and cents alone; that a good
conscience and whole-souled devotion to duty, giving ungrudgingly of the
very best that is in you to those that have confided in you, will be
your very best asset when the final account is made up.
May I impress the fact upon you that an ethical man, with a just
appreciation of his duty to his patients, can never be a vendor of
patent or unofficial medicines. Indeed, I would be lacking in my duty
if, with the opportunity this paper offers me, I did not, from the
standpoint of experience, impress upon you with all of the force at my
command the necessity of being wary of the detail man and the alluring
advertising literature with which your mail will be flooded. You will
scarcely have opened your office, and be waiting with what patience you
can command that rush of the halt, the lame and the blind to which you
feel that your talents entitle you, before the suave detail man, having
heard of the new field, puts in his appearance. What you lack in
therapeutic experience he can supply you by drawing liberally on the
experience of others who have worked little less than miracles in an
adjoining town by the use of his pills and potions, his elixirs and
tinctures. You will find him smooth and oily, placid and plausible. He
knows his story well, and even by his much speaking can almost persuade
you that what you knew, or thought you knew, or what you had recently
been taught, were all out of date; that by some stroke of genius the
chemist of his house had discovered some way by which compatibles would
combine with incompatibles into the formation of a new and staple
mixture, possessing all of the virtues and none of the defects of its
original constituents, rendering chloral as soothing as the strings of a
lute and as harmless as the cooing of a dove, extracting from cod-liver
oil every disagreeable feature and leaving nothing but its supposed
virtues behind. He will show you the short road to fortune and success.
Treat him kindly; the ethical man should not be rude, and brusqueness is
not a sign of Roman honesty or virtue. Be assured he feels his position
keenly, and is dreading the catechism which will sooner or later display
his ignorance of everything but the story that has been drilled into him
like a parrot.
There has been no greater shame in our profession than the influence
these men and their houses have exercised, and incidentally the
indorsements and recommendations that thoughtless men have furnished
them. The blame is all ours, and we cannot shun it. We pride ourselves
on our scientific attainments; that we take nothing for granted; and,
now that the age of empiricism has passed, we accept nothing that does
not bear the stamp of scientific approval. And yet, before the campaign
of the American Medical Association and the revelations of Collier's and
the Ladies' Home Journal, we accepted our treatment from the hands of
the manufacturing houses, and dosed our patients with nostrums about
which we knew nothing except the statements of those whose sole purpose
it was to sell. There are few of us who have been many years in practice
to whom a blush of shame does not come at the recollection of our
gullibility and our guilty innocence. Can any man deem it ethical to
give even to a good dog something about which he was totally ignorant?
And yet this is just what we were doing. A short time ago a particularly
shrewd detail man was discussing this very point with me, and claiming
that, as the formula was now required by law to be printed in each
bottle and package, this most formidable objection could not now hold
good. Handing me a bottle of his patent cure-all, he glibly called my
attention to the six or seven ingredients, with the amount of each
contained in the fluid ounce. Among other potent quantities I can recall
1-48 gr. of morphia and 1-240 gr. of strychnia. The dose was a
teaspoonful three times a day. Any man can imagine the more than
homeopathic effect of 1-48 gr. of morphia divided into eight doses.
These well-known and well-tried drugs were not, however, the life of the
nostrum, and presently we came to the twenty minims to the fluid ounce
of the fluid extract of the drug from which the remedy derived its name.
Something I had never heard of. Something unlisted in the U. S. P.
Something discovered and owned and controlled by this house alone. As my
ignorance became more apparent his eloquence increased, and I have no
doubt that a few years ago, before my moral conscience had become
aroused to the therapeutic sin of prescribing something whose botanical
family, whose chemical formula, and even whose physiological effects
were totally unknown to me, I would gladly have accepted a sample and
would have tried it on some poor soul too poor to pay for a
prescription. It is nothing short of a shame to think of what we have
done in this line. The sin has been one of carelessness and laziness
rather than of ignorance. Here we had ready to hand some remedy,
beautiful to the eye, palatable to the tongue; then why take the time
and trouble to bother about constructing a formula of our own when
someone else of equal experience had constructed one for us? I am ready
to thank God that most of these nostrums are as harmless as they are
beautiful, and, while I may not have done good, I rarely did harm by
their use. I am not discussing the opium and cocaine laden classes. I
wish to emphasize incalculable harm that must result to the physician
himself who allows someone to do his thinking for him. I am also
referring to the attitude of the ethical man to his patient, and beg to
ask if we are doing even part of our duty when we are doing no harm.
Allow me to conclude this topic by asking you to spend an hour some day
in casually glancing over (a deep study would fully repay you) the pages
of the U. S. P., or a list of the remedies that have in one year
received the sanction of the Council on Pharmacy of American Medical
Association. If you don't find enough drugs and combinations to meet
every case and every conceivable situation, you had better desert
practice and exploit some wonderful cure-all as a detail man.
If we, as physicians, had nothing but our duty to our patients to
consider, and incidentally our own profit and glory, the practice of
medicine would soon degenerate into a mere trade. I may even say that,
had we nothing but the promptings of our consciences to keep us in the
straight and narrow path, if we had nothing but the knowledge of work
well done, and if the desire and determination to give the best that is
in us were our only incentives to an ethical life, the profession would
be so beset by the temptations of commercialism, and the notoriety and
prominence which commercial success brings, that the halls of Esculapius
would soon need a scouring and purging greater than Hercules gave the
Augean stables. Despite the high incentive to all that is best and
purest in life which our noblest of callings should beget in us,
physicians are only human, and human weakness, like disease, is no
respecter of persons or of callings. It may have been that the medical
fathers, with a knowledge of the temptations to which they were
subjected, and a desire to save others from the pitfalls which beset
their paths, were imbued with a determination to place their profession
on a higher plane than others; or it may have been the natural evolution
which inevitably resulted from and followed the promptings of man to
help his fellow-man, to devote himself to the relief of pain and
sickness, to sacrifice his comfort and ease and almost every pleasure in
order that others might have ease of body and peace of mind and soul,
which from the earliest days have placed medicine as a profession apart,
and have imposed upon those who have entered its ranks certain standards
of conduct and insisted on certain ethical relations which have lifted
it above mere questions of gain and the vain acquisition of renown. We
have been taught that Hippocrates himself was great not only as a
physician, but greater still as an ethical teacher who has left with us
certain maxims and proverbs which, though handed down through the ages,
have lost none of their truth and none of their spotless morality. Even
in the Middle Ages, when learning, not to say science, had sunk into
such an abyss of ignorance that the ability to write one's name lifted
one into the ranks of the educated, when human ills were relieved more
often with the sword than with the scalpel, the leech was a man apart.
His education, his scientific investigations, and even his supposed
communion and partnership with the evil one, placed his on a pedestal
above other professional callings. Then, as now, though men might scoff
at our profession of superior knowledge and skill, when "pallida mors"
stalked abroad or knocked at the hovels of the poor or palaces of the
rich, all arose to call us blessed. It has been often said that, could a
medical man live up to the ethical standards of his profession, his
chances without creed or priest would not be small at the last great
day. But with all of our high ideals we are only mortal, and we know and
have sorrowed at the fact that many of our ethical standards are not
lived up to, and that the Hippocratic law is frequently more honored in
the breach than in the observance.
We have in every community where one or two are gathered together in the
name of medicine the man who is everything to your face and everything
else behind your back; who damns by faint praise; who sympathizes with
you in your sorrows and trials, who visits the family of the patient you
have lost to assure them of your skill and to insist that everything was
done that could have been done, "but"----and that one harmless little
conjunction, meaning nothing in itself, is more eloquent than a thousand
terrible adjectives or burning, blistering adverbs or participles. So
many things can be said by the pious uplifting of the eyes, the
sanctimonious upturning of the palms. He would not for the world leave a
doubt in the minds of your people, and, no matter what in his inmost
heart he thinks of your mistakes (from his standpoint), it is not his
place to injure a brother, but, alas! he is not responsible for the
unguarded tongues of his friends, and he usually sees that they do his
work well for him. Often it is "if I could only have reached him
earlier," which, being interpreted, means a miracle would have been
wrought. Almost every community has its miracle worker, its medical
resurrectionist. His cases are always a little worse than others, his
victories a little more wonderful. Where you have a bronchitis, he has a
desperate pneumonia, your transitory albuminuria is with him acute
Bright's, and hopeless cases follow him to undo him, only to meet defeat
at his skillful hands. You hear that Mr. A. is desperately ill with
pneumonia on Monday, and on Friday you meet him on the street, looking
hale and hearty, firmly believing that, had Dr. X. been one hour later
in reaching him, he would ere this have been gathered to his fathers.
Should you mildly suggest that some error in diagnosis might have been
made, that even the best of us at times go wrong, and that resolution in
true pneumonia could hardly be expected in four days, you will find that
he has been prepared for you, feeling that Dr. X. has used some potent
remedy as yet unknown to you and his less skillful brethren, and firmly
convinced that your suspicions of his case are based upon your ignorance
or your jealousy of poor Dr. X., who was not there to defend himself,
who had always spoken so kindly of you, and had uttered nothing worse
than the harmless little conjunction "but"----
A little bragging is not a sin, and indeed is usually harmless, and in
the long run reacts on the miracle worker. But the ethical man does
frequently suffer from it, and it is a fact, absurd as it may seem, that
the average man or woman would much prefer to be considered at death's
door about three-fifths of the time--indeed, almost a walking
Lazarus--than to be deemed the picture and personification of vigorous
health. Dr. X. knows this, and plays upon the credulity of his patients.
He frightens them to death's door, works a miracle, and has tied them to
himself forever. We all have suffered from this, and will continue to do
so until the little grain of truth has grown from the tiny mustard seed
to the vigorous bush. Dr. X., with his faults, has his virtues. He
aspires to be the busiest man, the richest man, the most popular man in
his community. All of these ambitions, if properly guided, are laudable,
and, indeed, while enhancing his power and prestige, may be redounding
to the good of his people, for a man to be the busiest and most popular
man in his profession must usually be the best posted, the most highly
educated, the hardest working man, not only for himself, but for those
he serves. So, while we may smile at Dr. X. and his big ways, we may
love him for his virtues and forgive his small faults.
But for the man who deliberately goes to work to undermine another; who
takes advantage of some temporary absence of the regular physician to
ingratiate himself; who, appreciating the fact that people worried
nearly to death by the illness of a loved one, will forget every
obligation and desert every old friend in the hope that the new one may
offer some encouragement or extend some hope, is ready for these
emergencies. He carries satchels full of hope for all cases and
occasions. He prescribes it liberally, diluted, however, to the point of
despair because he was called in an hour too late, or because the case
had already been damaged beyond his power of repair. This gentleman
advances not only by his own deceit, but uses the power of church, of
politics, of family influence and social opportunity, to lift himself
along. Verily he has his reward, but it is not in peace of mind, not in
the honor and respect of his community, but the contempt of every honest
man, be he of the profession or laity. Not the least of the perplexing
questions which beset the man who is trying to lead an ethical life is
his duty in his relation as consultant. Indeed, there is scarcely a
situation in professional life that at times presents more embarrassing
possibilities, or calls for the exercise of more tact. It is a pleasure
to be able to bear witness to the ability of the man who has called you
to his aid, to assure the family that everything has been done that care
in diagnosis and skill in treatment could demand. But what of the cases
where gross carelessness or blind ignorance have hastened what might
easily have been delayed or averted? There is only one way here, only
one duty. Treat the man as his carelessness or his ignorance deserves.
Again, you are called in consultation with a thoroughly good man who has
given ungrudgingly of the best that is in him. Perhaps your superior
skill in certain lines, perhaps your superior opportunity to observe a
certain line of cases, have taught you something that he has not had the
chance to learn. As before it was your duty to expose the careless
ignorance of one, now it is your place to so give your opinion and
explain your position that no possible reflection can be cast upon the
other. Don't approach a consultation with the manner of a priest of
Delphi. Don't pose as the fountain of all wisdom and of all experience.
Indeed, in this work you will be surprised how often you will learn from
him you are called upon to assist. He has seen the case for days, where
you can spend but minutes with it. It is his part to bear the blame,
yours to share his fame should success crown your combined efforts.
Frequently you will be called upon when a resort to surgery is
demanded--not so much to perform the operation as to give your opinion
as to the advisability of a certain line of procedure. Having determined
what is to be done, don't assume the place of prominence. You have
little by way of reputation to gain by performing an operation that you
were known to be competent to perform or you would never have been
called. Let him do the work with your assistance and advice. In this way
you will have gained a fast friend for future consultations, and you
will have enshrined him in the esteem and confidence of his people.
Therefore, help him and uplift and bear witness to his worth, and don't
humiliate him by your airs and assumed superiority.
As a last word, don't consult with an unworthy man, for be assured that
your reputation is worth more to you than any consultation fee, however
badly you may think you need it.
The question of fees is one that must be considered. We hate to think of
the combination of medicine and money, and our patients abhor it even
more. The days once were when only the sons of the rich sought the
liberal professions. It was thought unworthy in the days of the dim ages
for a pupil of Esculapius to charge for his services. Any remuneration
that came to him was an offering of gratitude--indeed an honorarium
which might be tendered or withheld at the will of the patient. A truly
noble conception this, that the good we offered was beyond a mere
question of price. Equally comforting was the belief that the ill which
resulted despite our best efforts was no reflection on our skill, but an
evidence of the wrath of the Gods. Would that we were as near Olympus
now as then, and that the Gods walked with men to reward the worthy and
punish the unjust. Would also that the manners and costumes and climate
of Ancient Greece were still with us, so that man need take little heed
of raiment beyond a robe and sandals; that he required no expensive
outlay for instruments, no intricate electric outfit, and no automobile.
What a life ours would be if now as then our grateful patients sought
us, and we passed our many hours of leisure in eloquent discussion or in
lazy lounging amid the leafy groves or shaded porticos of the temples!
But the times have changed, and we have changed with them, and abhor as
we will the combination of medicine and money, we are forced to take
thought of the morrow and to spend many, many anxious moments in this
thought and in trying to evolve ways and means by which a balance can be
maintained between the honoraria of patients, both grateful and
ungrateful, and the claims of persistent creditors. Perhaps it is best
thus, as the average man needs some incentive to good work beyond the
acquisition of honor and glory. An axiom in the question of fees is
this, that in order to be respected we must respect ourselves, and no
one can respect himself unless he holds his calling above a trade and
bases his charges upon this feeling of respect for himself and his
profession. This axiom should be held in mind in arranging any fee
table, and should be insisted upon in our settlements with those who
think a doctor's bill should be discounted from one-quarter to one-half.
I have often wondered how this right to a discount in a doctor's bill
ever got such a firm hold in the public mind. Perhaps the city man
cannot appreciate this fact like his country brother. The poor, honest
old farmer, part of the bone and sinew of the land, expects the highest
cash price for everything that he sells. If anybody has ever heard of
one who when ten barrels of corn at $3.50 per barrel comes to $35,
offering to take $25 for his bill, he should corral and cage this rara
avis. But hundreds of us from the rural districts have been deemed mean
and close-fisted and extortionate because we gently insist that $35
worth of professional services rendered are worth $35 and not $25.
This is largely our own fault, for so many of us present a bill in one
hand and an apology in the other. We collect our bills not as if they
were our just dues, but with a half-hearted insistence, inducing our
debtor to believe that we have scruples ourselves as to the value of our
services, and that a liberal discount from the face of the bill will
about bring us to a fair settlement. It will be better for all--for
patient as well as physician--to realize that the "science of human
duty" implies a duty to oneself as well as a duty to the public, and
that a small proportion of the charity of our profession should begin at
home. To the young men I would especially give this advice: Having
settled on a fair and honest fee for your services, do not depart from
this fee. With us, as a rule, prosperity in the form of a numerous
clientage comes sooner than to the other professions. You will not long
have opened your office before you will be surprised at the number who
demand your services. There will be no doubt of the demand, for those
who pay the least invariably demand the most. Don't turn them away, for
if you properly employ your time, you will gain in experience and
occasionally a dollar or two. You will soon be enlightened as to your
popularity, for the first pay day will send most of them to another and
it is presumed easier man. Many of those who stick will tell you that
Dr. ---- never charged but 50 cents a visit, when the regular fee is
$1.00. Dr. ---- will vigorously deny this and produce his books to prove
his truth. Here is everything plain before you. Every visit is listed at
the established figure. You will rarely see his cash book, for then the
whole transaction would be plain, and you would discover the simple
manner by which in every community some supposedly ethical man is
supplanting his truly ethical brother by charging full fees and settling
for half.
Dr. ---- will cut 50 cents or a dollar from the established fees for
out-of-town work, and immensely increase his practice by it. For be it
understood the bone and sinew of the land dearly love the wholes and
halves, and will flock to sell in the dearest and pay in the cheapest
market. Don't envy this man his prosperity and, above all, don't follow
in his footsteps. Bide your time with the assurance that the man who
charges $1.00 for $2.00 worth of service rarely gives more than a
dollar's value, and that when a real emergency arises and a capable,
honest man is demanded, one who respects himself and his calling, if you
have prepared yourself and are known to give the best that is in you,
the cheap man will go to the wall and your merit will receive its
reward. If by chance any of you have not seen Dr. McCormick's paper on
this question of fees and collections, let him by all means find the
proper A. M. A. Journal and read it. It is a classic worth any man's
time and attention. In concluding this subject, let me endorse what he
says about the cheap man, the price-cutter. Whatever his charge may be,
he is usually getting full value for his services. Realizing his lack of
education or ability or temperament, or whatever it is that puts him
below his professional competitor, he cuts his fees in order to live. It
is not our place to meet his competition, but to pity him, to extend to
him the helping hand, to endeavor to elevate him to our standard, and
never to lower ourselves to his.
I have only a few words to say on the subject of professional
confidences. So sacred is the relation between the physician and patient
regarded that the courts will not compel a physician, while on the
witness stand and under oath, to tell the truth, and not only the truth,
but the whole truth, to reveal what is imparted to him in confidence by
his patient.
If in this exalted function of doing justice between man and man the
courts will not compel the recital of some important piece of evidence,
how carefully should we regard our professional relation, and see to it
that neither in strict confidence or in idle gossip do we betray the
secrets that suffering man has confided in us.
It may be somewhat out of place in a paper dealing with "The Ethics of
the General Practitioner" to speak of the tendency, or perhaps better,
the half-formed determination of the majority of every class to be
specialists. I must confine myself to the predilection of the average
medical student for surgery. It was so in my day, and I suppose it is so
now, that almost 75 per cent. of the graduating classes are thoroughly
satisfied that the end and aim of medicine is surgery; that practice and
the less spectacular branches are parts of the profession essential to
it as a whole, and fitted for those who intend to lead the plodding
life, but too slow and too prosaic for the man bursting with the
knowledge of his own brilliancy and his own special fitness. There is no
question but that this tendency has done much to lower the average
fitness of many classes. Men become listless and careless, neglecting
everything but their hobby, and while the surgical amphitheatre is
crowded, the medical clinics will be shunned, even deserted were it not
that the sections are such that the absentees can be spotted and warned.
There is no question also but that indifference to everything but
surgery is responsible for many of the failures before the State
Examining Boards. We must have surgeons, and they must begin their
training in medical schools, and it is not my purpose to discourage
earnest work and honest effort to this end. I wish, however, to say that
every ethical specialist needs a thorough grounding in the general
branches of medicine, and he should not in his student days neglect the
other essentials to a well-rounded man. Most heartily do I wish to
condemn the careless, happy-go-lucky manner in which so many men totally
unprepared and totally unsuited by temperament for this branch "rush in
where angels fear to tread." I wish especially to draw your attention to
the fact that there is a vast difference between the operator and the
surgeon. Almost any young man with a disregard of the sight of blood,
with nerves unaffected by human suffering and a heart untouched by a
knowledge of his power to do harm, can in six months' practice on the
cadaver learn to cut, to sew and to ligate with neatness and despatch.
Indeed, there may be many before me of the student body whose young and
nimble fingers could teach dexterity to the best surgeons of the city.
Very many with no pretense to this dexterity, and no equipment but a
superabundance of assurance, graduate as surgeons and assume and aspire
to a position of prominence that it has taken the true surgeon years of
the hardest, closest, most untiring study, observation and work to
reach. We are told as an excuse for this remarkable evolution from the
student to the surgeon that the young man of today is taught so much
more than the old men were; that the very manner of teaching, the
equipment of the schools and the superior requirements for matriculation
cannot but turn out better posted and more competent men. There is much
truth in this. There is much truth also in the fact that while more is
taught, more, infinitely more, is demanded of the student, and the
knowledge that would have secured him a diploma fifty years ago will now
scarcely carry him through his freshman year.
We also hear that "I want to be a surgeon, because surgery accomplished
positive results." This is very true also, and it is evident that if you
amputate a leg your patient will be minus a member. Don't lose sight of
another fact, however, that if without being competent to meet any
unforeseen emergency that may arise, you lightly open the abdominal
cavity, you will have a positive result in the shape of your own little
private graveyard. The newly graduated surgeon is not as dangerous as
the man who left medical school years ago, before the students received
one-third of the surgical training that they do now. Many of these men
have not taken a post-graduate course, have never been associated with a
hospital, nor have they had even an opportunity for moderate surgical
observation; and yet they are attempting to do the work that only a
skilled specialist should undertake. I am not speaking of emergency
surgery for which any man should try to prepare himself, and be brave
enough to undertake when human life is at stake. I am referring to
operations of election when the services of a competent man can be
secured. The point is just this, gentlemen, that medicine as a science
is the result of evolution and not the creation of some brilliant brain;
that what has been done in it has been accomplished not so much by
inspiration as by close plodding work, exhaustive experiment and
continual observation; that surgery as one of its branches cannot be
mastered in the four years of student life, but that to be surgeons you
must be workers and observers. It will not do to settle the matter by
saying that a man must make a start. This truth is too self-evident to
be smart, nor is it entirely convincing. An answer equally true will be
that you will not allow the embryo surgeon to start on you, and before
you put yourself or your wife or your mother in his hands you will
demand that he possess some other qualification for his specialty
besides his conceit, his gall and his need of the fee. There may be some
exceptions where the man is born and not made, but I beg to assure you
that the surgeon rarely springs full-fledged and fully fitted from the
brain of Minerva.
Our profession is nothing if not altruistic. It demands daily and hourly
more of self-sacrifice, more of self-devotion, than any secular calling.
Indeed, the comparison is often drawn between the nobility and necessity
of the duties which we perform and those of him who by divine
inspiration and laying on of hands has been called to succor the
diseased soul. It is not my place nor is it my purpose to enter into a
discussion of this point, and I mention it only to show that we are
marked men in every community; that we are placed on a higher plane and
that more is expected of us than of our brethren of the other liberal
professions. This, indeed, is right, for no man, the priest possibly
excepted, enters into such intimate relations with his people. He is
ever present with them to share their sorrows and their joys, and in his
position of family friend and family confessor it is his place to bind
and salve wounds more deadly than those made by the hand of man. It is a
popular impression that this close relationship between the physician
and his people is one evolved by the brain of the novelist or one
possessed by that most beloved, but now extinct, old family physician.
Let us get this impression from our minds and let us realize that our
duties, our responsibilities and our relationship to those we serve are
just the same, are just as close, and are just as engrossing as they
were when that dear old patriarch of the profession made his rounds,
scolding some, chiding others and advising all to better, purer and
nobler lives. Changed as our relationship to the community may be in
some respects by the translation of many of the brightest and best of
our cult into the ranks of the specialist, it is still and always will
be the general practitioner who is looked up to as "the physician," and
by his work in professional and private life our profession will be
judged.
In the beginning of my paper I stated I could do little more than
rehearse to you some of the old axioms and maxims that have been handed
down to us for generations. I am aware that I have taught you nothing
new tonight, and that I have not tapped that fountain of inspiration
from which genius gushes in poetic or oratorical streams. I trust I may
have convinced you that it is not amiss for us at times to hold close
communion with our souls, and to take stock of our moral and
professional assets. The further I have advanced the more fully I have
realized how impossible it is to evolve new ideas or elaborate new
creeds to supersede those by which the fathers lived and died and earned
honor for themselves and our profession.
So we face today, gentlemen, just about the same propositions that have
always been ours to meet, and what was ethical one hundred years ago is
ethical now.
The science of human duty simply demands that you be honest to
yourselves, honest to those you serve; that you may look every man
squarely in the face and not as if you feared he had heard something you
had said behind his back. May I quote to you the words of the Earl of
St. Vincent to the immortal Nelson: "It is given to us all to deserve
success; mortals cannot command it."
THE STUDY OF RECTAL SURGERY IN
NEW YORK CITY.
BY J. DAWSON REEDER, M. D.,
_Lecturer on Osteology, University of Maryland,
Baltimore, Md._
Having decided to take a course in Rectal Surgery, I arrived in New York
and matriculated at the New York Polyclinic Hospital on October 1st for
a course of instructions under Prof. James P. Tuttle, and desire to
herewith describe briefly my reception:
Professor Tuttle is a finished surgeon of the old school of gentlemen, a
master of his art, and, under all conditions and circumstances, adheres
strictly to the ethics of the profession. I was not only most cordially
received by him socially, but was most fortunate in being honored by
requesting me to assist him, or be present, on operations upon his
private patients at an uptown hospital. This unexpected and friendly
honor gave me an opportunity to observe closely the work of this great
surgeon in detail, and I had the pleasure of witnessing every case under
his care during my three months' visit. As to his colossal work on
cancer of the rectum and sigmoid, his results are too well known for me
to dwell upon at this time, and he has an enviable record which makes
him the authority of this distressing malady which is so prevalent in
the cases referred to the Rectal surgeon, and have so long been
unrecognized by the general profession. I had the pleasure of witnessing
him extirpate the rectum by his bone-flap and perineal route, and in
some of these cases was honored by being his assistant. As to the method
and technique in each of the above mentioned, I will endeavor to give
later. Another very important point gained by association with this
surgeon was, that my own theory as to the merits of the Whitehead
operation were simply an endorsement of his teachings, namely, that this
particular operation, while classical, was only justifiable in selected
cases of hemorrhoids, while the Clamp and Cautery or the Ligature method
had no restrictions as to variety or location of the pile mass.
Another important subject was the question of treatment of Tubercular
fistula. For a number of years Dr. Tuttle said he was most discouraged
in his results and had almost abandoned any attempt to cure this class
of infections, but of late he had obtained most excellent results by
introducing his soft flexible probe and following this tract with a
grooved director; opening this throughout its entire extent, and then
completely cauterizing at dull red heat with the actual cautery. This is
then packed with iodoform gauze, and since using the cautery, his
results have been decidedly better. Under the direction of his
assistant, Dr. J. M. Lynch, a class of three was formed, with regular
work and instructions in the dispensary of St. Bartholomew's Clinic,
where we were given cases to diagnose and treat. This course consisted
in introduction of proctoscope and sigmoidscope diagnosis of ulcerations
specific and benign, and local treatment through this instrument. To the
inexperienced the results and probabilities gained through the use of
this pneumatic instrument of Tuttle's, which is a modification of the
Laws proctoscope, are surprising. By the electric illumination with
which it is equipped one is able to introduce the instrument with
absolute safety to the patient for a distance of 10 to 14 inches,
exploring the entire circumference from the anus up through the sigmoid.
My next course of instructions was under the direction of Prof. Samuel
Gant at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School. Dr. Gant likewise was
most cordial in his reception, and on several occasions honored me by
entertainments, including letters of membership to his club, and at his
home with his family. Dr. Gant, also a master of his art, has made a
reputation of renown, and is a most successful operator. While of an
entirely different character from that of Dr. Tuttle he is equally
attractive. Dr. Gant argues that the majority of cases of cancer when
seen by the specialist are too far advanced to offer any hope by radical
operation, and generally limits his attempts at relief to a colostomy.
As to the merits of this procedure, I am not sufficiently versed to
offer criticism further than to say that the results of Dr. Tuttle are
certainly encouraging to the surgeon who will undertake this ordeal of
extirpation in hopes of eradicating the disease, while Dr. Gant's
operation of colostomy, of course, is only palliative, he making no
claims of a cure, except when the growth is seen very early and is
freely movable; then he will extirpate.
As to the operation for hemorrhoids, Dr. Gant uses ligature and sterile
water anesthesia in nearly every case, and the patient is thereby cured
without the administration of a general anesthetic. The difference in
the time of recovery is a question to be always considered, in my own
judgment, and is as follows: Dr. Tuttle uses the clamp and cautery
almost universally, and the patient is discharged within the period of
one week, while the ligature method requires local treatments to the
ulcerations produced by the sluffing of the linen threads, and takes
from 10 days to three weeks.
Constipation and Obstipation are treated surgically by both of these
gentlemen by the operation of Sigmoidopexy or Colopexy, which consists
in anchoring the gut to the abdominal parietes after having first
stripped back the peritoneum over the area covered by their sutures.
Chronic diarrheas and Amœbic Dysentery are likewise treated by
Appendicostomy and Caecostomy. The difference in this operation being
that the former consists in delivering the appendix upon the abdomen and
fixing the same with catgut sutures until the peritoneal cavity is
walled off by adhesions, and then amputating later, so that the stump
may be dilated to permit of regular colonic irrigations.
Dr. Gant performs a similar operation, to which he has applied the name
of Caecostomy, and having devised an ingenious director consisting of
one metal rod within a tube of slightly larger calibre, he is able to
pass the obturator through the ileo-caecal valve, and then, by
withdrawing the rod or obturator, is able to pass a rubber catheter into
the small intestine. The metal tube is then withdrawn and a shorter
catheter is placed parallel with the long one, which necessarily is in
the caput, and after placing clips upon each tube to prevent leakage, he
is able to flush out both large and small bowel at desired intervals.
As to the irrigations through these newly-made openings, it is a matter
of choice with different operators, those in greatest favor, I think,
being Ice Water, Aq. Ext Krameria and Quinine Solution.
A very interesting case brought before us by Dr. Tuttle was one of
Specific Stricture of the Rectum, and the treatment anticipated is as
follows: He performed a Maydl-Reclus Colostomy in the transverse colon,
in order first to treat the ulcerations and infected area locally, and,
secondly, so that he would have sufficient gut above the stricture to do
a Perineal extirpation later and bring down new healthy intestine from
the upper Sigmoid for a new permanent anus; then later he would close
the artificial anus in the transverse colon, and his patient should have
a perfect result. The period required for these three operations would
cover a period of not less than nine months; and if after this there is
not perfect Sphincteric action, Dr. Tuttle does a plastic operation to
repair his sphincter.
Before continuing with a brief description of the technique of
Extirpation as above referred to, I wish to herewith express my sincere
gratitude and appreciation of the many honors and courtesies extended to
me by these gentlemen, and am quite sure that the same was not all
personal, but honor to the University of Maryland's Faculty of Physic,
who have aided so materially this younger specialty by such men as
Hemmeter, Pennington and Earle, who are constantly quoted by all
intestinal and rectal surgeons.