It may be well, perhaps, to analyze a little more closely this new attitude which the lay public has assumed toward the general practitioner, and which is apparently so potent a factor in directing young physicians away from the general practice of medicine. In thousands of communities and in innumerable individual instances there has been, of course, no change at all in the old relationship between the doctor and his patient, and in the intimate and sympathetic friendship with which the counsel and service of the one are met by the gratitude and respect of the other. Throughout the country, however, and particularly in large cities and the adjacent towns, the bonds of this extremely personal relationship are rapidly breaking down because the public is tending more and more to turn in the first instance to the specialist instead of to the general practitioner. The feeling seems to be that since the specialists know so much and are the ultimate authorities it is foolish to waste time by going elsewhere. Little effort is made to cultivate a relationship with a sound general adviser. “What has happened to the general practitioner?” someone asks, and without waiting for an answer, he runs off to visit a specialist. Whenever there is “anything” the matter, or as soon as one does not immediately recover from his disability, he seeks a specialist, not on the advice of his general practitioner, who might at least know what kind of specialist would be desirable, but on the advice of John or Mary, who had a friend who was cured of what is supposed to have been a similar complaint. In small communities the “City Specialist” wears a particularly brilliant halo, and the country physician must content himself with his lot while his patients seek expensive advice in the metropolis. If this is the situation and if the specialist is regarded with respect well-nigh akin to awe, while the general practitioner is regarded as a useful convenience when one has a cold or has overeaten, is it any wonder that so many of the better medical students wish to prepare themselves for specialism? The public does not seem to want them very seriously as general practitioners.