Licensed to Murder

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 50.

“Licensed to Murder.”

—The San Francisco Examiner points out that 6,000 new doctors receive diplomas in this country annually. These are from the regular schools, and do not include Osteopathists, Christian Science practitioners, and others not considered by the law and profession as regular. We are told that “practising physicians feel alarm ‘at the great number of doctors turned out,’” and the wish is expressed that seven out of ten be driven out of business, and the remaining three be subject to proper supervision at the hands of a competent medical board. It is said that “there are undoubtedly ‘more competent physicians in the United States than in all the rest of the world put together.’ ‘There are also in the United States more murders ‘committed by doctors through ignorance than in all the rest of the world put together.’” Three sample cases are given of wrong diagnosis; a typhoid fever patient is treated for the grip, a case of indigestion is diagnosed appendicitis and an operation demanded, and a third who had severe kidney disease was told that he was simply run down and needed a tonic. The first and last died; the second barely escaped operation and probable death by seeking other counsel. The Examiner points out that the licensing is wrong; it licenses many who know naught of practise; their knowledge is merely theoretical. How do all these doctors live? Many do not employ doctors at all, and get along very well. Many depend on patent medicines, which sell by the million or gross, packages or bottles. Surely the old world is a great hospital, but it seems as tho it were overstocked with physicians. What will the world do?