THE DOCTORS.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 608, 31 May 1876, Page 2

THE DOCTORS.

To tJie Editor of the Globe. Sir,—Will you allow me a space re the "Doctors" and your article of the 27th instant. I have carefully read your article, and the two letters that have appeared since (with the editorial of yesterday), but see no reason given to alter my opinion, viz., that of thankfulness to a member of the profession, who has seen fit to break through the traces of the established medical faculty. As you say, in your footnote of yesterday, you made no comment on Dr Townend, nor should you do so, but all must know that it was his case that gave rise to the leader of the 27th, and the ensuing letters. But, it is more particularly touching your remarks on Trades' Unionism that I should like to speak, and that under two heads—their charges and their tyranny. Their charges: A father of a family in Christchurch who has the misfortune to call in a doctor must know beforehand that, be h : s (the father's) success for the year so ever great, it will be swallowed up by the doctor's bill, and he will be a lucky.man if it ends at that. There is no method in their charges, as evidenced by some correspondence that appeared in your columns some time since re doctors' charges. Their tyranny : Ask any family man to change his doctor, and his answer wiU be " I can't!" Ask him why, and he will tell you, "I've not settled the old bill, and if he (the doctor) hears of it I shall be summoned at once." That is really the case; an ordinary family man in Christchurch:: dares not change his doctor. Is not that Trades Unionism with a vengeance ? P will give a case in point. A woman, who has been for months under the hands of a doctor, and feels herself dying, wishes for the opinion of another, whose name she gives ; the husband, anxious to do what he can for the sufferer, calls him in. The same day, at his work, he is met by a demand for full payment from the first doctor, and curtly told that, if he does not pay, then he will be summoned. " When ? " the next day. Where does the strictest rule of any Trades Union come up to that ? The husband waits on the doctor for an explanation, and is told, "You called in another without consulting me ; you have acted very shabbily!" Shabbily-pshaw I Sir, I have known a doctor in Christchurch, in a dangerous case, after being repeatedly called on, at the end of tho third day say, " I have made up my mind to attend no new cases. Could not that answer have been given in the first instance ? I have known a doctor in Christchurch, who has been called onto attend a midwifery case in emergency (the doctor really engaged being on a case at Akaroa) excuse himself on the plea that he was "going to a dinner party." There is a medical man now practising who was persuaded to attend a case with a piatol at his head. I could go on enumerating, but trust I have said enough to show that there is great cause for thankfulness when any energetic.

man stands forward, and says, “ I will be satisfied with reasonable remuneration and no impartial person can say but what that has lately been done in one case. As to the remark of your correspondent of yesterday, who claims to be neutral, and makes such a witty comparison between doctors, snobs, and tailors, about not employing a qualified man as assistant, I say there was till lately, and I believe now is, for dispensary assistant to one of the largest practitioners, a lad of fourteen. Let all or any read the evidence at the inquest, think of the practice of the M.P, whose case has made the stir, and they will think with me, his assistant’s greatest fault was “he had no license to kill! ” Yours, &c., Paterfamilias.