Meanwhile, let us stand back and watch the procession of modest men who never advertise—oh, no! At the head, with haughty mien, comes Professor Keene Carver, preceded by a herald in blood-red garb, blowing a large brass horn. Then comes the “bearded lady,” whose blonde and breezy whiskers so delight the heart of his swell society _clientele_. And here comes Rip Van Winkle—a middle-of-the-road “eclectic,” gathering up his long and weedy beard to keep it from getting tangled up in the scientific barbed wire fence along the route. And here comes another sure-enough “regular,” evidently a medicine man—so rare nowadays. He is riding in a swell turnout and is on his way to his clinic. How do I know that Professor Windy Bowels is a regular? Because the gentleman who is riding beside him to his clinic is a reporter on the Chicago _Daily Jib-boom_.
I presume that the suggestion that I have made of the advisability of taking the public frankly into our confidence and giving it accurate information so far as its comprehension goes, by signed articles, in preference to clandestine advertising and the promulgation of fallacious ideas of medicine and surgery, will meet with bitter opposition. I nevertheless believe that a better education of the public is the only way to down quackery. The opposition will come chiefly from the surreptitious advertiser, who sees a prospect of other men getting the advertisement that he believes to be his proprietary right.
Then there is the tribe of the Microcephali. The howl of protest will be long and loud from the pews occupied by these far-famed champions of medical orthodoxy. “We won’t put _our_ discoveries or contributions in the newspapers—not ever.” And gazing at their lemur-like front elevations, we can well believe that they would have no trouble in establishing a “halibi.”
Apropos of “discoveries,” it may as well be understood that the public is bound to get the details of them sooner or later, and, when the time is ripe, the matter should be presented to it in a clear and intelligible form—comprehensible to the layman.
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To a great extent Nature has a commanding influence in the equipment of the successful practicing physician,—the man who actually secures the desired results in his treatment of patients, builds up and retains a good practice, and obtains a financial income of respectable proportions.