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"Sweating" Medical Men.
THE Friendly Societies of Victoria are very
roughly handled by a caustic writer in the
current number of the Australian Medical Jour
nal. It appears that at a recent meeting of
the Melbourne Medical Association a paper
was read entitled " A Remarkable Document,"
and although the author is not willing that the
paper should be published, it serves the
editor of the Journal as a text for some re
marks on a subject of vital interest to the
medical profession. "The document referred to
was a - printed form of agreement between a
Friendly Society and its medical officers.
Among other things, it required the medical
officer to attend not only the members of the
lodge, but practically all their relations, ' their
sisters, cousins and aunts.' If unable to attend
when sent for by a member, another doctor
could be called in and the medical officer
would have to pay the fee. He also observed
that many members ot tliis^asso^iation were in
good social and fiuancial^pO^itirorfE/ and well
able to pay ordinary me&ifcal fees,x-w£*ile the
remuneration given by itf&ges tox^heir
medical officers had been rediipedr^he author
of the paper declined to sign' the a^eeinedbt,
and as he was in a strong pdsiH^^they_orJly
practitioner in an,isolated suburb^the ,p^rti
cular lodge in question modified it to suit his
views ; but all medical men are not in such a
fortunate position. As Dr. Mullen observed
in a paper read before the Victorian branch of
the British Medical Association recently, it is
the lodges that 'occupy a very strong posi
tion ; organised for a definite object) registered
under a comprehensive Act of Parliamenfcj
governed by persons of high standing iu the
political world, aud managed by paid officials,
they are impregnable.' They are taking
advantage of their position and of the over
crowded state of the medical profession to
4 sweat' its members."
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The writer iu the Australian Medical Journal
points out that 44 the trouble is not a local one.
What is known as the 4 Battle of the Clubs '
has been, and is still, raging in Cork. The
medical men in that city combined to resist
the demands of the clubs, particularly object
ing to well-to-do persons being members of
lodges. The clubs imported 4 blacklegs,' in
the shape of three outside medical men, but
these have not been equal to the strain of work
thrown on their shoulders owing to the
ostracism by the local practitioners. A similar
struggle is going on in Brussels, where a
syndicate of medical practitioners proposed
certain modifications in their agreements with
the Federation of Mutual Aid Societies. Tho
lodges declined to accede to the request, and
the syndicate, which includes 420 of tho 435
practitioners in Brussels, thereupon 4 struck,'
and decided to 4 boycott' any one who worked
for the federation. Only four did so, and tho
societies will soon be forced to come to torms,
In Elgin asomewhatsimilar difficulty occurred,
and has ended in the societies yielding to the
demands of the medical men." The writer in
Journal therefore maintains 44 that if medical
men will only combine and work harmoniously
for the interests of the profession as a whole,
instead of playing for their own hands, they
will be able to efficiently protect themselves
against unjust exaction and imposition. But
this is just what, for some inscrutable reason,
medical men will not do. As Dr. Welsford,
of Dover, remai'ked recently in the British
Medical Journal:-4 Very few men seem to be
alive to any but immediate and personal
interests, and public spirit is conspicuous
usually by its absence.' This fact is well
exemplified in Victoria by the very little sup
port accorded to the Medical Defence Associa
tion-the only body which can do anything to
remedy the evils under which tho whole pro
fession is groaning. The association is at the
present time taking action in regard to the
4 remarkable document' referred to above, and
if its membership included every member
(of the profession the Friendly Societies would
soon be forced to take a more liberal view of
the relations that ought to exist between them
and their medical officers." 44 On the other
hand, the writer predicts that <4if united action
be not taken, medical men will be ' sweated '
more and more as the profession becomes more
and more crowded. This year, almost
all the lodges have reduced the rate
of remuneration to medical officers,
and the reduction has been meekly
accepted, because men were afraid of losing
their positions." "If," says the Medical Journal,
"when the first reduction was proposed, the
matter had been brought before a body like
the Defence Association, representing the
whole profession, and united action taken to
z-efuse a lower rate, the lodges would have
retrenched in some other department, and
would have held their medical officers in
higher respect."
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