The Doctor's Dilemma/Getting Married/The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet [antikvár]

PREFACE ON DOCTORSIt is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of thecommunity, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity.That any sane nation, having observed that you could providefor the supply of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest inbaking for you, should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary in-terest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair ofpolitical humanity. But that is precisely what we have done. Andthe more appalling the mutilation, the more the mutilator is paid.He who corrects the ingrowing toe-nail receives a few shillings:he who cuts your inside out receives hundreds of guineas, exceptwhen he does it to a poor person for practice.Scandalized voices murmur that these operations are neces-sary. They may be. It may also be necessary to hang a man orpull down a house. But we take good care not to make the hang-man and the housebreaker the judges of that. If we did, no man'sneck would be safe and no man's house stable. But we do makethe doctor the judge, and fine him anything from sixpence toseveral hundred guineas if he decides in our favor. I cannotknock my shins severely without forcing on some surgeon thedifficult question, "Could I not make a better use of a pocketfulof guineas than this man is making of his leg? Could he not writeas wellor even betteron one leg than on two? And theguineas would make all the difference in the world to me justnow. My wifemy pretty onesthe leg may mortifyit isalways safer to operatehe will be well in a fortnightartificiallegs are now so well made that they are really better than naturalonesevolution is towards motors and leglessness, &c., &c.,&c."Now there is no calculation that an engineer can make as tothe behavior of a girder under a strain, or an astronomer as tothe recurrence of a comet, more certain than the calculation thatunder such circumstances we shall be dismembered unnecessarilyin all directions by surgeons who believe the operations to be