The Doctors Dilemma: Preface

The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface

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Doctors
by George Bernard Shaw #29 in our series by George Bernard Shaw
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Title: The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors
Author: George Bernard Shaw

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5069] [Yes, we are more than
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THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA: PREFACE ON DOCTORS
BERNARD SHAW
1909
It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the
community, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity. That
any sane nation, having observed that you could provide for the supply
of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest in baking for you, should
go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is
enough to make one despair of political humanity. But that is precisely
what we have done. And the more appalling the mutilation, the more
the mutilator is paid. He who corrects the ingrowing toe-nail receives a
few shillings: he who cuts your inside out receives hundreds of guineas,
except when he does it to a poor person for practice.
Scandalized voices murmur that these operations are unnecessary. They
may be. It may also be necessary to hang a man or pull down a house.
But we take good care not to make the hangman and the housebreaker
the judges of that. If we did, no man's neck would be safe and no man's
house stable. But we do make the doctor the judge, and fine him
anything from sixpence to several hundred guineas if he decides in our
favor. I cannot knock my shins severely without forcing on some
surgeon the difficult question, "Could I not make a better use of a

pocketful of guineas than this man is making of his leg? Could he not
write as well--or even better--on one leg than on two? And the guineas
would make all the difference in the world to me just now. My
wife--my pretty ones-- the leg may mortify--it is always safer to
operate--he will be well in a fortnight--artificial legs are now so well
made that they are really better than natural ones--evolution is towards
motors and leglessness, etc., etc., etc."
Now there is no calculation that an engineer can make as to the
behavior of a girder under a strain, or an astronomer as to the
recurrence of a comet, more certain than the calculation that under such
circumstances we shall be dismembered unnecessarily in all directions
by surgeons who believe the operations to be necessary solely because
they want to perform them. The process metaphorically called bleeding
the rich man is performed not only metaphorically but literally every
day by surgeons who are quite as honest as most of us. After all, what
harm is there in it? The surgeon need not take off the rich man's (or
woman's) leg or arm: he can remove the appendix or the uvula, and
leave the patient none the worse after a fortnight or so in bed, whilst the
nurse, the general practitioner, the apothecary, and the surgeon will be
the better.
DOUBTFUL CHARACTER BORNE BY THE MEDICAL
PROFESSION
Again I hear the voices indignantly muttering old phrases about the
high character of a noble profession and the honor and conscience of its
members. I must reply that the medical profession has not a high
character: it has an infamous character. I do not know a single
thoughtful and well-informed person who does not feel that the tragedy
of illness at present is that it delivers you helplessly into the hands of a
profession which you deeply mistrust, because it not only advocates
and practises the most revolting