like the other professions,
consists of a small percentage of highly gifted persons at one end,
and a small percentage of altogether disastrous duffers at the other.
Between these extremes comes the main body of doctors (also, of
course, with a weak and a strong end) who can be trusted to work under
regulations with more or less aid from above according to the gravity
of the case. Or, to put it in terms of the cases, there are cases that
present no difficulties, and can be dealt with by a nurse or student at
one end of the scale, and cases that require watching and handling by
the very highest existing skill at the other; whilst between come
the great mass of cases which need visits from the doctor of ordinary
ability and from the chiefs of the profession in the proportion of, say,
seven to none, seven to one, three to one, one to one, or, for a day
or two, none to one. Such a service is organized at present only
in hospitals; though in large towns the practice of calling in the
consultant acts, to some extent, as a substitute for it. But in the
latter case it is quite unregulated except by professional etiquet,
which, as we have seen, has for its object, not the health of the
patient or of the community at large, but the protection of the doctor's
livelihood and the concealment of his errors. And as the consultant is
an expensive luxury, he is a last resource rather, as he should be, than
a matter of course, in all cases where the general practitioner is not
equal to the occasion: a predicament in which a very capable man may
find himself at any time through the cropping up of a case of which he
has had no clinical experience.

THE SOCIAL SOLUTION OF THE MEDICAL PROBLEM

The social solution of the medical problem, then, depends on that large,
slowly advancing, pettishly resisted integration of society called
generally Socialism. Until the medical profession becomes a body of men
trained and paid by the country to keep the country in health it will
remain what it is at present: a conspiracy to exploit popular credulity
and human suffering. Already our M.O.H.s (Medical Officers of Health)
are in the new position: what is lacking is appreciation of the change,
not only by the public but by the private doctors. For, as we have seen,
when one of the first-rate posts becomes vacant in one of the great
cities, and all the leading M.O.H.s compete for it, they must appeal to
the good health of the cities of which they h