Truly, a generous corporation, the public would argue. It not only looks after its sick and injured without charge to the unfortunate, but it gives them the benefit of the best medical and surgical talent obtainable. But the corporations did not do this from philanthropic motives. Not much. It was a matter of business. Sickness and accident among a large force of employees costs money. The quicker it can be overcome the better off the company will be. But, the reputation for 188philanthropy once established, the corporations began to economize in their outlay for medical expenses. For this the doctors and surgeons were largely at fault themselves. The plum was too tempting and there was a keen competition for it, with the result that prices took a sharp tumble. Physicians with a small practice who heard of other doctors getting $5,000 a year to look after the sick and injured employees of a corporation argued that they would like to do the work for $2,000. It would ensure living expenses, and what they could pick up on the side in regular practice would be profit. They didn’t know, until too late that the demands on their time would be such that they would have little opportunity for outside practice, and that the $2,000 they received from the corporation would cover their entire income. So they began bidding and wire-pulling against one another, and the corporations, wise unto their day and generation, took advantage of the unseemly competition. In no one line of corporate endeavor is this competition more keen and noticeable than in life insurance. It is not so very long ago that the position of medical examiner for a good company was a respectable, lucrative position. What is it now? It is safe to say that there is hardly a company in the field to-day that pays a decent sum for its medical examinations. The doctor is the watchdog of the company’s treasury. He stands between it and great financial loss. He protects it against fraud. A slight error or the least degree of negligence on his part may cost the company thousands and thousands of dollars. The issuance of a policy is a very important 189business transaction. The doctor stands in the same relation to it as does the lawyer who examines the abstract in a real estate deal. Contrast the fee allowed the medical examiner in a case involving the issuance of a $100,000 life insurance policy and that received by the lawyer who examines the abstract in a real estate transfer involving $5,000, and my argument is complete. Some companies expect to secure all of an expert examiner’s time—and actually get it—for $2,000 to $3,000 a year. It might be well to contrast, also, the commission received by the agent who writes the policy, with the medical examiner’s fee.