Medical Ethics

Abstract

To the Editors of the ProvincialMedical and Surgical Journal. GENTLEMEN,-The above subject has long and seriously occupied the professional mind of this country, and is assuming a fresh importance week by week, both among the periodicals and various Sacieties throughout England, on acconnt of the evils which do arise from the want of corporate government. Under theqe circumstances would you permit me to suggest, that it would be well if some of the older and more influential of our body would turn their attention immediately to the subject, and propose some feasible remedy for such evils at the forthcoming annual meeting at Oxford. I am aware that a proposition for a Medical Reform Bill will then be submitted by the Council to the Association, which will deal with the heavier grievances under which we all labour; but there are many minor ones which that Bill would never reach, and it is to these I would now draw attention. It is clear to everbody that the profession is always increasing in members, and that there is no guarantee that they shall all be honourable men, and kept honourable, but that in the heat of the race each one is left to his own discretion, to benefit himself, or damage his neighbour, by whatsoever means he thinks fit. It may be true that persons of downright bad character are comparatively rare amongst us, and that we exhibit as a whole a very noble combination of talent, learning, honour, benevolence, and truth.; but still the above state of things ought not to exist, especially when we know that one bad man is enough to sow discord amongst many good ones, and tlhat, as a matter of fact, even the most eminenit and most amiable among,st us are apt to fall out, and to rermain alienated from each other, because their sense of pride-or dignity, if you will, will not permit them to make the first advances to reconciliation, and also because there is no proper medium through which such desirable reconciliation may be effected. Now, what I would propose, and what some gentlemen of greater age and influence might readily carry out, or at least lay the foundation of, at the meeting of the Association, is a scheme by which the Council might appoint boards of umpires within each convenient district to whom all differences amongst members might be submitted for arbitration. Although such institutions could affect the members of the Association alone in a direct manner, yet, indirectly, they would exercise a very wholesome influence on the entire profession, and be an excellent temporary substitute for that more universal corporate goveinmnent which must, sooner or later, prevail amongst us. There are some offences that should, and, I am informed will soon be positively uncompromisable asad penal; such as, firstly, the semi or extra-professional offence of adventuring to practise without any legal diploma at all; secondly, the fraudulent assumption of additional titles and honors by certain members of the profession, obviously with the view of elevating their own importance as compared with others, and who are evidently only one remove from the open and undisgiised quack; thirdly, those who practise the billsticking and advertising system. The first of these, never belonging to us, will simply be prevented from attempting to make it appear as if they were medical men; and the two latter classes can only be visited with expulsion under any sound regulations that may be fi-amed for professional government. Besides such gross derelictions as the above, however, there are sundry lesser deviatioins from strict rectitude, leading to differences which such boards of umpires might easily heal. Many differences often do arise, not from any real or actual cause, but from misreports of the truth, or from the intermeddling of " goodnatured friends;" which differences are prevented from beinig arranged by that sense of personal pride or dignity above adverted to. Many talented, amiable, and highminded men are thus kept permanently aloof from each other, who might otherwise easily come to explanations which would terminate in a generous and brotherly friendship. There are also many underworkings, whether of a scientific or a monetary character, yet all springing from rivalry or jealousy in some shape or othe-, which have for their object the depreciation of other men's talents and virtues, and the depriving them of their practice by innumerable little tricks, all of which it would be impossible to mention, but which each one can understand according to his own experience. These annoyances, which every man, I believe, has felt at one time or other, along with the evils of ruiinous contractings and competition, especially in the parochial and club systems, are really deserving of grave attention. The very actors themselves in these cases condemn the nuisance, but sav they caninot help it; they must do as others do, in self-defence, because they must live; and all of them yearn with one mind for some authoritative interference. Let the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association take the lead, and we may then have some hope. I remain, &c., June 19, 1852. VOX.