THE COMMON MIND: HAS IT AN EXISTENCE? AND TO WHAT EXTENT CAN IT BE DEPENDED UPON IN THE DISCUSSION OF

PUBLIC QUESTIONS?

EDWARD J. BROWN, M.D., MINNEAPOLIS.

The common mind is the mind capable of recognizing easily recognizable facts. Such a mind recognizes the fact that universal laws are universal in their application. If such a mind is told that all laws have their exceptions, it will reply that apparent exceptions simply prove that the law is not allowed free course. Honesty as the only sound policy and freedom as every man's right within the limits of not infringing upon others' rights, with fair play as a necessary corollary, are among the universal facts which such a mind recognizes and insists upon. With a long base line of knowledge such a mind is an effective agent for good. Such in the aggregate and composite is the mind of Lincoln's common people. "You can fool all of them some of the time, but you can not fool all of them all the time." While you can fool all of them some of the time, you can not buy all of them any of the time. There are times when the great mind of the common people, as measured by majorities, is overwhelmed by sophistries, and seduced from the paths of righteousness, as the Anglo-Saxon race has been seduced of late by the blandishments of imperialism, but the great heart and conscience of the common people is all right, and so, in the long run, is the common mind.

During the late session of the Minnesota legislature, I learned one morning that the osteopathic bill was being promoted by an acquaintance who was a member of that body, and I at once addressed him, expressing my surprise and disappointment that a graduate of old Dartmouth, who had lately listened to President Tucker's eloquent talk on the

common mind, could support a proposition to legalize a system of healing which was simply a mixture of massage, hypnotic suggestion and fraud. His defense fell so far short of being reasonable as to serve as a sad damper to my enthusiasm for the university training as a means of developing the common mind..

The Journal of The American Medical Association (Jan. 3, 1903) contained a long and interesting letter from Dr. Robt. T. Gillmore of Chicago, discussing the unethical conduct of certain distinguished consultants. The writer had been for some years the family physician in a well-to-do family. For a persistent uterine hemorrhage in the case of the mother he made an examination, discovered cancer and urged immediate operation, which he agreed to do for one hundred dollars. At the request of the family he telephoned a noted surgeon to see the case in consultation. The noted surgeon, after the consultation, deliberately stole the case, and performed the hysterectomy for forty dollars. The letter was highly entertaining, but contained nothing more practical than the suggestion of a professorship of ethics in our medical schools. Not being satisfied with such disposal of such specific charges as set forth, I ventured to address the editor of The Journal, expressing the opinion that Dr. Gillmore's plain duty to the profession was to prosecute the offending surgeon in his county society, and that one such prosecution would do more to reform the practice of "eminent" surgeons than any number of ethical discussions. The letter was returned with the memorandum that it was too harsh for publication. The editor's interest in medical ethics seems to have been academic rather than practical. To the common mind it would appear that a Kentucky community which refuses to punish arson and murder; a Minnesota community in which a jury can safely acquit a confessed murderer on the score of drunkenness; and a profession which either ignores or condones the most flagrant offenses against its ethical principles, are equally lacking in those qualities which command the respect and confidence of honest men.

A well-educated young physician lately admitted to me

that he would be willing to send a case requiring massage to an osteopath, and the osteopaths of our city claim that our most prominent physicians do send them cases. The arrangement is probably mutual, and possibly explains the asserted fact that there was practically no opposition to the passage of the osteopathic bill. My well educated young physician also admitted his willingness to send a case requiring suggestive therapeutics to a homeopathist or Christian scientist. The idea that such a course involved moral dishonesty and scientific treason did not seem to impress him.

I have lately attended a funeral of an old and esteemed friend, a man who in his old age in consequence of financial reverses, with an invalid wife and blind daughter to support, become an advertising "quack." I would rather have that man's reputation here and his reward hereafter, than that of many so-called leaders of the profession-men who have forced themselves into prominence by buying, begging or stealing their professorships or other means of self-aggrandizement.

A legal gentleman who heard the late address of Mr. James B. Dill before the students of the State University on "Success," remarked that success was evidently thought to be the engineering of great schemes and leaving all detail work to others. Much of our benevolent work is constructed on that scheme. A great professor is the head of a free dispensary, but he is seldom seen there unless some spectacular surgery is required. Another man suddenly blossoms out as a philanthropist, and insists upon the necessity of certain physical examinations of school children. He is willing to do the exhausting work of instructing the teachers, and the latter, who have very little work to do, are expected to make the examinations. When this philanthropic scheme had accomplished its purpose in a certain town and fallen into "innocuous desuetude," the county medical society was requested to give its approval to a proposed examining board, made up of competent practitioners, who were willing to earn their glory by doing practical work. A few of our distinguished professors of ophthalmology at once attacked the proposition with all the zeal that is usually shown by the possessors of protected

interests when they imagine their graft is threatened, and with the aid of their friends in the profession and on the school board, the proposition was effectually killed. I have seen Professor Hirshberg leave his crowded clinic, jump into a carriage and drive off to a public school to personally examine the pupils' eyes, but our professors are too busy. They were anxious to introduce the system to the teachers of the country schools for the mere pittance of fifty dollars per day, and they probably could have been induced to continue the spectacular and lucrative work of lecturing to the city teachers; but they frowned upon the proposition that the half dozen competent men who were willing to engage in the practical work of examining the children should be allowed to do so. There was probably sufficient community of interest and, at all events, of sympathy in the county society to endorse their determination to prevent any examination of the children except by the teachers. There was evidence of the common mind, the ideal, the altruistic, the transcendental.

After many years the revisionists have at last captured the American Medical Association, emasculated its code of ethics, and are now ready to consult with homeopaths, osteopaths, Christian scientists, and any other sectarians who desire their aid in exploiting the general public. The new code is a daisy. The revisionists have always condemned the old code as unnecessarily entering into details; but the new descends to the depths of assuming that educated physicians need to be told that buying and selling patients is derogatory to professional honor.

The highly educated young physician whom I have mentioned, declared to me his confident belief that physicians average well in character with the rest of the public, and he seemed rather hurt at my suggestion that they ought to be a great deal better than the general public. To put the matter frankly, a physician who only averages with the general public, even the general public with which he assumes social equality, is so far beneath the standard as to be worthy only of contempt. The clergyman who is rated as being only up to the standard of his social class, is rightly looked upon by in

telligent men everywhere as a very poor specimen. Much more is that true of the educated physician. There is much in the training and environment of the average clergyman that tends to render him a subservient follower of authority. The training and associations of the physician, on the other hand, are favorable to devout belief in the universal and everlasting principles which have appealed to true men everywhere in all ages. When, then, men come into an inheritance of traditions such as form the glory of our profession, and into a training and environment so favorable to all that is manly and noble and devout, and descend to the level of the degenerate commercialism and politics of the day, how can a selfrespecting member of the profession keep silent? The great majority of physicians have been more democratic in their sympathies and more independent of party lines than the members of the other learned professions-and there is every reason why men who in the main are opposed to monopoly and special privilege and corruption in political and civil life— should be aroused to the importance of securing equal rights for all members of their own profession. An editorial writer in the New York Medical Record, a few years ago, frankly stated that no man had any business in the medical profession unless he had wealth or was willing to marry a rich wife, as though the profession were not already sufficiently cursed with degeneracy.

The commendable efforts made by our State University to raise its standard in the medical school are very gratifying, and there is reason to hope that men with so long a base line as will be given by a six-years' university training, will have enough of the common mind to become valuable citizens instead of a menace to society. It is unfortunate, however, that competition for students should lead to a modification of the plan which the best friends of the university had hoped would be carried out, namely, an entrance requirement of a full bachelor's degree in arts or science. It is furthermore to be hoped that the time may soon come when the possession of a professorship in one of our state universities may not carry with it the suspicion of having been secured by political or commer