Article August 20, 1910 Issue

The practice of medicine seems to have little regard for...

Dr. George F. Butler

New York Medical Journal

The practice of medicine seems to have little regard for anything beyond man's physical being. Mental, moral, and spiritual diseases by far outnumber those of the physical body. More than half of our diseases, as well, are of mental origin. Neither politics, civil statutes, nor physic will cure all the ills with which mankind is afflicted; for vicious habits of thought, greed for place, for power, for money, selfishness, etc., may be inherent affections of all humanity. ... Another strongly developed fault in the profession is the lack of sympathy with patients, and the tendency to look upon them as merely "cases," or, as in hospitals, "material" for clinics or demonstration. This view, largely fostered and developed in the hospital graduate or attendant, is likely to be carried too far in private practice. The man or woman who is ill wants to be and is entitled to be considered a living, ailing human being, looking for aid to recovery, and not merely another case of typhoid, pneumonia, or what not, in the statistical material of the doctor's clientele. Doctors waste a great amount of time and energy in the gathering of statistics.

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