Sta,—" Janus " appears to ignore the different conditions under
which the whole-time researcher and the general practitioner work ; the former chooses his own hours and his own ways ; the latter is at the beck and call of others. Let a number of general practitioners be allotted the same number of patients at the beginning of the year: they will have an unequal number before it ends. Is the salary to be based on the earnings of the most or of the least successful? Either appears inequitable. But the idea of external control is quite as distasteful as a fixed salary. I do not doubt Mr. Willink's good faith in giving his two pledges recently at Birmingham, but the logic of events will be too strong for him once the State enters into competition with the " outside " general practitioner and the voluntary hospitals. His Parliamentary Secretary, Miss Florence Horsbrugh, was more of a realist when she said in the House that the doctor who was unwilling to become a State official was perfectly free to retire or to emigrate!—I am, &c., W. LANGDON-BROWN. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
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