DOCTOR AND PATIENT SIR,—To deal with Dr. Gordon Makes article
on above in your issue of 7th curt. in the compass of a letter is difficult.
Personally, I am disinclined to defend to the Public the attitude of the Profession to the White Paper, for any criticism is put down by them to a desire on our part to defend our so-called " Vested Interests." But I feel it my duty to warn the Public that if or when these proposals become Law, and a Medical Service embodying them is in being, the first victims will be themselves. The doctors' part in the cure or pre- vention of disease is a very small one. Ignorance, squalor, vice, destitu- tion, unemployment, bad housing, insufficient and badly cooked food, insufficient and shoddy clothes, uncongenial, unhealthy and poorly re- munerated work, &c., all need eliminating before the doctor can usefully be called on. In the presence of these giants does Dr. Malet think that the mere political dragooning of the Profession will bring any improve- ment in the nation's health?
Dr. Malet talks of " speaking the truth without fear or favour " to the patient as a good thing to do. But is it not true that what makes good relations between people possible and lasting is just the ability to know when not to speak the truth without fear or favour? You cannot work to a fixed rule in these matters. Conscientiously examine your patierit and tell what is politic, but the truth without fear or favour is another sort of animal entirely.
Picture this rule in the newspaper world and how small the issue! It would possibly contain only the Date, Births and Marriages. The Death Notices would not always speak of the departed as " beloved," and " sadly missed " might be a rara avis! Dr. Malet seems to sneer at the " Laying on of hands." What is wrong with the laying on of hands provided they are warm and gentle? Official hands are so apt to be neither!
I would counsel the Public to scrutinise carefully the White Papa proposals, and ask themselves whether they are satisfied that their state under the proposed regime is likely to be happy and satisfactory. Don't blame the Profession when you find that, in spite of all we.told You, you find yourselves in the clutches of Political Medicine.—Yours, &C, 641 Alexandra Parade, Glasgow, E. z JAMES COOK, M.O.
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