of the physicians had
been practising over 25 years and only 3 percent less than ten years.
This means that most of the rural doctors in these counties have less
than ten years more to practise and that there is no indication that
their places will be filled by younger men. In Manitoba one rural
municipality has employed a physician on full time, and a recent act of
the New York legislature makes it possible for towns to employ
physicians. It seems probable that country people will be forced to
employ physicians on a salaried basis if they are to secure adequate
medical service. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the
physician will be employed by the local government. Industrial workers
are now employing physicians on a salary and farmers' organizations are
employing salaried veterinarians. Why cannot a local health association
be formed to employ a physician, whose job it will be to keep its people
well?

Two factors prevent the larger use of physicians now available. Chief of
these is the cost. Farmers handle relatively less actual money than
townsmen, and their income is less frequent so that they have less on
hand, while the cost of medical attendance is necessarily higher in the
country. Fear of running up a bill deters many a farm woman from calling
a doctor, when one call might prevent many more later on. The farm home
tends to employ a physician only for serious sickness, rather than as a
medical adviser who may forestall illness. Another difficulty is one of
the physician's own making. The experience is far too common that in
cases of immediate need when the family doctor cannot be located,
doctors will refuse to attend a case on account of so-called
"professional courtesy." It is time that public opinion be aroused so
that such cases be brought to the attention of county medical societies
with sufficient public opinion to force them to take suitable action.
The ethics of every profession must be shaped to meet the needs of those
it serves as well as the pocketbooks of its members.

Lack of medical attendance is most serious for the farm mother during
confinement, and the mortality of rural mothers during childbirth, as
shown by the investigations of the U. S. Children's Bureau, is an
indictment of our supposed civilization. When we learn that in a
homesteading county in Montana there were 12.7 deaths of mothers per
1,000 births, which is twice the rate for the United States as a whole,
which is h