Physician and Patient, or a Practical View of the Mutual Duties of the Medical Profession and the Community. from the Text of William [Sic] Hooker, Ed. by E. Bentley (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. POPULAR ESTIMATES OF PHYSICIANS. There is no class of men whose talents and attainments are so erroneously estimated by the public, as are those of Physicians. Some of the causes of this erroneous estimate have been brought to view in the chapters on the Uncertainty of Medicine, and on Good and Bad Practice. I propose in this chapter to treat of this subject more distinctly, to point out some other causes operating with those which I have already mentioned, to show the results of this false estimate of medical character and attainments, and to develope some plain principles on which a correct estimate may, for the most part, be secured. I presume it is sufficiently clear to the reader, from the views which I have before presented, that the community cannot judge with any degree of correctness directly, of the practice of Physicians, --either of the truth of the principles on which it is based, or of its actual results. How then shall the community judge of Physicians? This question I will endeavour to answer. The view which I gave, in the first chapter, of the uncertainty of medicine, I trust, made it obvious to the reader, that a thorough education is pre-eminently necessary to the proper practice of the medical art. In endeavouring, therefore, to form an estimate of the qualifications of any Physician, let the evidence of his having obtained such an education be well considered. But what is this evidence? Is it to be found in the bare fact that he has a diploma, obtained from some respectable medical institution? While a diploma is worth something as evidence, as there must be some improvement of the means of education, in order to pass the examination requisite to obtain it; yet it must necessarily be defective evidence. That the..