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--