CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 177, 5 November 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE BLESSING OF RAIN. It is not difficult for people of Taranaki whose land is blessed with an abundance of rain to understand the feelings of the people of Poverty Bay and Canterbury, who are needing rain very badly. In drouglitv areas the question of inducing rain Is one of very great importance, for on water, of course, depends the prosperity of the community. A Timaru citizen is endeavoring to ijet the public to sub* scribe funds for "rain-making" experiments by the use of explosives. Rain has never yet been induced to descend from a clear sky, but it may be induced to fall more quickly if clouds are present. Everybody remembers the enthusiastic endeavors of an Australian doctor to "make rain" and his utter failure to do so. A few years ago, Canterbury needed rain as badly as it now does, and the Rev. D. C. Bates, now Government Meteorologist, although extremely sceptical of results, undertook to make the necessary experiments. Nothing happened that would justify a continuance of the experiments. If rain-making were possible the Nile barrages in Egypt would be unnecessary. If firing guns at the sky would induce it .to drop moisture, the treat irrigation schemes of Mildura and Renmark, on the Murray river, represent wasted money. If the expenditure of explosives would blow rain out of the atmosphere, the costly sinking of artesian bores which constantly proceeds in droughly Australia would at once cease. Even in this day of marvels one may doubt that science will be able to coerce nature into doing something against her will, and one is afraid that to bombard the blue ,sky with guns or dynamite is likely to be as ineffective and useless as trying to sink a Dreadnought with a pea-shooter. "YOUR BIRD, SIR!" In all dealings between man and man there are certain observances that are followed by common consent. Most men's instincts will guide them to act in fairness to friend or opponent. These matters almost arrange themselves. The point is easily explained by a common custom in the field of sport. No good sportsman would think of shooting the other fellow's bird. Most people have heard two shooters exclaim simultaneously, "Your bird, sir!" The observance of fine points of etiquette sweeten life, 'but it is certain that the points may be too fine when human beings and not birds are in the balance. The question of the etiquette guiding medical men in their relations with each other was touched on at the last meeting of the Stratford Hospital Board, and we have no intention of referring to the specific instance, merely taking it as a text. 'With many medical men an observance of a fine point between doctor and doctor seems of more consequence than a human life. Instances are common enough of the refusal of one medical man to carry on work begun by another, except with the consent of the first. A patient or his friends has really as much right to change his doctor as his grocer if he believes the change would save a life or bring about a return of health. The faith of a patient is half the battle. Consider the position of the patient of a medical man who had undertaken a case, but who was absent when called on in an urgent emergency. It would be "unprofessional" for a second doctor to proceed to the saving of a life, unless .the first doctor had arranged the matter with him. We do not know whether the Medical Association has any ruling on the point, but we do know from specific and quotable instances tha.t the method is frequently disastrous to sick folk. It is especially disastrous to folk of small means, who do not necessarily understand the fine points of conduct animating the profession and who would be at their wits' ends at the refusal of medical men to continue a case begun by a fellow practitioner. Necessarily doctors view such | matters from an entirely different standJ point to .the layman, the layman's standpoint being that any doctor if available wlien called on should, in the interests of humanity, exercise his skill. One illustration of how the point of medical etiquette works. A child was very ill. A young medical man was called in and treated the patient. The anxious mother was dissatisfied with the treatment. She had as much right to be dissatisfied with a doctor as the doctor had to be dissatisfied with a chemist or a chemist with a baker, because she employed the medical man and paid him. She desired that this gentleman should not call again. His reply was, "Unless I throw up the case, there is no other doctor in the place who will undertake it." That meant that the mother was forced to use the services of a doctor she had no faith in, unless an other were called in on equal terms to consult. The woman could not afford this. The child died. It is possible that no doctor on earth could have saved it, but in the mind of the woman there always remains the belief that the child would still be alive, if medical etiquette had not prevented lier from calling in another practitioner. We are well aware that in bumping up against such etiquette we are beating the air, and that no protest will avail in making doctors break the rule of etiquette which is summed up in the sportsmen's phrase, "Your bird, sir!"