In a recent conversation with a practitioner of thirty years’ experience, I said, “Doctor, you used to do a great deal of general surgery throughout this section of the city. Have the hospitals affected your practice in that direction to any extent?” He replied, “Surgery with me is a thing of the past. Even emergency cases are carted off to the nearest hospital. If by chance one does fall into my hands, it is taken away from me as soon as I have done the ‘first-aid’ work.” Personally, I see very little use in teaching surgery to the majority of students who intend to practice in our large cities—they will have little use for surgical knowledge. Here are three cases in illustration of the way our “charitable” hospitals antagonize the business interests of the profession: 1.—A very wealthy farmer engaged me to perform an 21exceedingly important operation. It was understood that $1,000 was to be the honorarium. He was afterwards advised to go to a certain “religious” hospital, where he was operated on by an eminent surgeon, who received nothing for his services. The patient paid $15 a week for hospital accommodation, and $25 a day to his family physician, who remained with him “for company.” What a harmonious understanding between the patient and his family doctor—and what a “soft mark” that surgeon was. I had the pleasure of telling the latter of the gold mine he didn’t find, some time later, and the shock to his system amply revenged the body surgical. 2.—A patient who was under my care for some weeks and paid me an excellent fee finally divulged the fact that he had meanwhile been living at a certain hospital as an “out patient,” at an expense of $8 a week. He had become dissatisfied with the hospital attention, he said, and, pretending great improvement, was permitted to get about out-of-doors. 3.—A man on whom I operated and who paid me my full fee without argument or question, came to me directly from one of our large hospitals, where he had been sojourning for several months. That medical men in hospitals are imposed on is a trite observation. So long, however, as it appears to be the doctor’s advantage to be on a hospital staff, plenty of men will be found who will be glad of the chance. As for the injury which the system inflicts on the profession at large, that is no argument with the individual. Human nature operates here as elsewhere. Knowing that the system is bad, we are all anxious to become victims.