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