VICARIOUS GENEROSITY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1245, 24 May 1886, Page 2

VICARIOUS GENEROSITY.

“ A lady of quaiuy,' a peeress to wit, sent her bucler to a well-known physician, a man who, were we at liberty to mention his name, would be generally recognised as one of the busiest men In London, with the request that the patient might be examined and prescribed for, gratuitous y. of course. “My good man,” said the physycian, “ as you are my lady’s butler, you are not a suitable parson to be treated at the hospital where I see poor patients for nothing ; in my own consulting-room, my time is too valuable ; here Is a guinea, go and see my junior colleague, Dr. , he is not so busy as I am, and will be able to advise you for that fee.” Her ladyship, it is interesting and Instructive to learn, repaid the guinea next morning. The moral Is plain. The profession as a whole does so much charitable work, that many people seem to expect that every member is to give his time and labor at any time and any place, and to any extent which may be most convenient to the patient or his friends. Quite a large enough proportion of the people who go to hospitals have no right to gratuitous advice, and it is asking rather too much of even the most patient and long-suffer-ing to expect that a still more well to-do class, too fastidious to go to hospitals, should be allowed to invade private con-sulting-rooms during the morning Impure, which ars dedicated to remunerative Ufcir. No other profession has such claims made on it. If the butler had been in some legal difficulty, would the family lawyer have been expected to advise him gratia I We trow not. —“British Medical Journal.”