“System and Efficiency,”--these watchwords of modern American business life, are beginning to be adopted by what used to be called the “learned professions”; and medicine, in particular, is entering a period in which “organization” and “service” seem destined to play a prominent and perhaps somewhat exaggerated rôle. The introduction of business methods and business phraseology into a profession which has hitherto been singularly free from a business atmosphere is to be explained in part by the general trend of the times, and in part by a praiseworthy attempt to give the public an opportunity to benefit more systematically from the extensive, though often complicated, advances of modern medicine. The function of the physician is no longer regarded as being limited to the care of the sick. “Health examinations” and “preventive medicine” for instance, are phrases as well known to the layman as to the doctor, and the medical profession is very properly preparing itself to offer to the public a new type of “service,” aimed, at least, at limiting the occurrence of disease. In making this broader program of usefulness available, there is every reason to believe that more and better work will be accomplished if the somewhat casual methods of many doctors are supplemented by those of the business world; but it is also of the utmost importance to remember that the experience of the centuries should neither be disregarded, nor subjected to modifications which, because they are new, may be too readily considered good. This conservative attitude applies chiefly, of course, to the age-old function of the physician in his relation to the sick. It may well be, though the question is debatable, that a new field, covering the care of the well, involves or permits something new in the relationship between doctor and patient. There may thus be some justification for the use of methods generally referred to as “putting the patient through the mill,” but there are already indications that the same methods applied to the care of the sick often lead to the patient’s confusion rather than to his peace of mind. And after all, the patient does deserve some consideration! Any reorganization of the medical profession that threatens the personal bond between doctor and patient is to be viewed with suspicion, even if the object appears at first sight to be more thorough and careful practice. With the exception of the relationship that one may have with a member of one’s family, or with the priest, there is no human bond that is closer than that between physician and patient (or patient’s family), and attempts to substitute the methods of machine or organization, be they ever so efficient, are bound to fail.