THE ROAD TO SURGERY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1874, 7 October 1913, Page 8

THE ROAD TO SURGERY.

Sir, —Dean Darby deserves tlie thanks of the community at largo for bringing into the limelight one of the most glaringly unpleasant features of colonial life. He is undoubtedly not alono in his opinion that "the road to the surgery is paved with gold." He might BUggest that it is also a ro&d which, loads to poverty and wrecked constitutions. There are two classes who visit the surgery, those who do the operations and "do" the patients at the same time, and tho napless wretches who provide material for doctors' experiments, and pay tho bills, cure or no cure. The experiences of to-day seem' to tally very closely with the experience of a woman who livod 2000 yearß ago, and of whom it is said that she had "suffered many things at tho hands of many physicians, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." The extortionate fees charged for these operations seem to call for somo legislation in the mnttor. If operations were performed on tho "no cure no pay" principle, thcro is no doubt that fewer of them would be heard of. _ Surely the whole medical World in this Dominion needs a commission of inquiry to regulate tho extortionate'fees and charges— 7s. 6d. and 10s. Gd. for a visit by a medical man is outrageous when compared with the fees charged in the iiomo countries. It may bo that in timo to come we shall need ah insurance Act like that prevailing at Home. The remarks made by tho loading surgeons in Auckland in answer to Dean Darby are like all othor answers by medical men to those questions—they aro quite beside tho point. No one denies that surgery has advanced to a most remarkable degree, but it socmß that to attain this degree of perfection, womenkind, and mankind, too, have been obliged to sacrifice health strength, and even life itself to satisfy : tho craving lust of the surgeon's knife/ Operations in some cases are doubtless : necessary, but the extortionato fees are ! just as unnecessary, and a good deal more unreasonable. Trusting you will find space for these few remarks, —I am, etc., A SURGEON'S MISTAKE.