him (a doctor) to go at once to the bedside. The doctor refused to
comply with the request on the plea that he was at the time "too busy."
When at last he did visit the room, the patient was dead. Then came the
supervisor, who took charge of the body. As it was being carried from
the room the supervisor, the "handy man" of the owner, said: "There
goes the best paying patient the institution had; the doctor" (meaning
the owner) "was getting eighty-five dollars a week out of him." Of this
sum not more than twenty dollars at most, at the time this happened,
could be considered as "cost of maintenance." The remaining sixty-five
dollars went into the pocket of the owner. Had the man lived for one
year, the owner might have pocketed (so far as this one case was
concerned) the neat but wicked profit of thirty-three hundred and
eighty dollars. And what would the patient have received? The same
privilege of living in neglect and dying neglected.




VIII


For the first few weeks after my arrival at the sanatorium, I was cared
for by two attendants, one by day and one by night. I was still
helpless, being unable to put my feet out of bed, much less upon the
floor, and it was necessary that I be continually watched lest an
impulse to walk should seize me. After a month or six weeks, however, I
grew stronger, and from that time only one person was assigned to care
for me. He was with me all day, and slept at night in the same room.

The earliest possible dismissal of one of my two attendants was