NEED FOB SALARIED MEDICAL PROFESSION 607 



stigmatized because he must shift it — too heavy to bear — to the shoulders 

 of other individuals who operate a free dispensary. 



The present system prevents adequate and timely aid to those who 

 need it. Many people, even within reach of dispensaries, dread the 

 thought of patronizing them and often waste their earnings in buying 

 nostrums from the neighboring drug store because they are cheap and 

 because they seem to fit their case. Ofttimes they injure themselves 

 more than they help. The pauper, who has lost all sense of deference to 

 public opinion, goes at once to the dispensary and is adequately treated. 

 But the vast multitude, too proud to patronize a dispensary and too poor 

 to patronize a physician, run continual risk of neglecting serious illness. 



The preservation of the public health is a matter of too great im- 

 portance to be entrusted to the care of the person who is ill and who feels 

 too poor to go to the doctor. The sick person becomes a non-producer 

 and a care to his family and friends. If the father becomes ill the 

 family becomes a public charge. If the children contract disease they 

 suffer and die because the poverty of the parent prevents proper medical 

 attendance. The masses of the people are too poor to avoid the risk of 

 letting disease run into the danger period. Conditions demand nothing 

 less than the removal of the stigma attached to dispensary patronage 

 so that any person, be he rich or poor, can go to be treated. Medical 

 attendance should be as free as the public schools. The healthy and 

 well-developed body is as important as the healthy and well-developed 

 mind. The two go together and the one can not be perfect without 

 the other. 



If, instead of lessening the amount of free medical attendance it 

 were made universal the present fee system would be limited to the 

 very wealthy and the physician for the common citizen would be placed 

 on a salary basis. This would entail a large increase in public expendi- 

 tures. Such an increase, however, would be a blessing in disguise in 

 that it would fix public attention on the prevention of disease, thus 

 lessening the amount of suffering in the community by eliminating the 

 causes of it. It would open the way for a great number of people who 

 are now deprived of proper medical oversight to consult a physician 

 before real danger is present. It would eliminate the volunteer work 

 and the charging of the rich to make possible the medical attendance of 

 the poor. The emphasis in medical practise would be shifted from the 

 curing to the prevention of disease. The physicians paid for by the 

 state would become agents in removing the causes of disease. Instead of 

 devoting exclusive attention to the cure of the consumptive or the one 

 afflicted with other ills, contagious or otherwise, they would be con- 

 cerned with the removal of the causes of the spread of the disease. The 

 public physician would also become the agent for the dissemination of 

 popular information on subjects of hygienic interest. In other words, 



