He was, too--I give him full credit for that. He was a good,
keen, close diagnostician. How did he know I had only fifteen
dollars on me? You did not have to tell this man what you had,
or how much. He knew without being told.

I asked whether he was acquainted with Doctor Y--Y being a person
whom I had met casually at a club to which I belong. Oh, yes, he
said, he knew Doctor Y. Y was a clever man, X said--very, very
clever; but Y specialized in the eyes, the ears, the nose and the
throat. I gathered from what Doctor X said that any time Doctor Y
ventured below the thorax he was out of bounds and liable to be
penalized; and that if by any chance he strayed down as far as the
lungs he would call for help and back out as rapidly as possible.

This was news to me. It would appear that these up-to-date
practitioners just go ahead and divide you up and partition you
out among themselves without saying anything to you about it. Your
torso belongs to one man and your legs are the exclusive property
of his brother practitioner down on the next block, and so on.
You may belong to as many as half a dozen specialists, most of
whom, very possibly, are total strangers to you, and yet never
know a thing about it yourself.

It has rather the air of trespass--nay, more than that, it bears
some of the aspects of unlawful entry--but I suppose it is legal.
Certainly, judging by what I am able to learn, the system is being
carried on generally. So it must be ethical. Anything doctors
do in a mass is ethical. Almost anything they do singly and on
individual responsibility is unethical. Being ethical among doctors