NEED FOR SALARIED MEDICAL PROFESSION 605 



THE NEED FOE A SALARIED MEDICAL PROFESSION 



Bx Pkofessor PAUL L. VOGT 



MIAMI UNIVERSITY 



THE state, in the interest of its own preservation and progress, has 

 assumed control of certain activities closely affecting the life of 

 every citizen. Among these are the care of the public roads, the dis- 

 tribution of the mails and the education of the youth. Still other 

 activities now in private control should be supported by the state for the 

 benefit of the whole people. One of the most important of these and the 

 one perhaps receiving most public attention at the present time is the 

 care of the health of the people, a function now delegated largely to 

 physicians, men who receive their reward for community service in the 

 form of fees from private individuals. 



Attention to the public health presents two aspects, the one pre- 

 ventive, intended to preserve health by removing the causes of disease ; 

 the other curative, and intended to restore to health those who have 

 fallen ill. The medical profession, through a large part of its history, 

 has been almost exclusively concerned with problems of curing disease. 

 The physician has had no direct financial interest in warding off disease 

 from those who were well, but has dealt only with individuals who were 

 ill. Until recently nothing was done to remove the cause of disease, the 

 attention of the physicians being directed toward the problem of finding 

 means of curing or relieving the pain of the one who had already con- 

 tracted disease. 



This was the logical course for physicians to pursue because it was 

 from the sick individual and not from a well public that he received his 

 pay. Under the present system the physician is prosperous in inverse 

 ratio to the health of the community. The doctor is busiest durirjg 

 those seasons when illness prevails most. Were there no disease there 

 would be no need of physicians. This would be an ideal condition for 

 which the people would be glad, not because of hatred of physicians, but 

 because of love for their own welfare. Since the physician to-day 

 receives his reward from the curative side of medical practise he is not 

 professionally interested in the prevention of disease. The public need 

 is for a medical fraternity paid by the public whose interests will be as 

 much in the prevention of disease as in the cure of it. "Were physicians 

 paid by the state, they would not fear the loss of income through work- 

 ing for the interests of the well, while at the same time attending to the 

 ill, because the lessening of illness would not necessarily interfere with 



