A little cutting or stitching is much more quickly done, and the patient may be dismissed as cured, or left under the impression “that everything was done that could have been done,” than a conservative medical or hygienic treatment, which involves more thought, labor, and patience, qualities which are not as eagerly cultivated as the art to wring out a good fee by a little surgery, with less labor and skill. There is not only too much mischievous doctoring, but there is too much of every kind, whether good, bad, or indifferent. The trouble is there are too many in the ranks of the medical profession; and this is not only true of this country, but is raising a cry of warning in Europe. The struggle for existence is a natural law, and nature is immutable. I do not mean to say, that it is a humane law, or that competition is a virtue; in fact, I believe quite the reverse. But much that is natural from a physical standpoint might not be so from a moral or spiritual plane; thus the two natures are distinct. It is reasonable to suppose that, if the natural crop of diseases falls short of supplying the demands of those who hunger for an opportunity to treat disease, and it lies within their power to create disease, they will certainly do so. The deficiency must be supplied, or one of two things must be done by the doctor: he must either starve, or go to work at something else. This may be cruel logic, but I know that these are the actual facts. Now let me ask how many persons who have some sort of a diploma will be self-sacrificing enough or sufficiently unselfish to prefer to starve or honestly work for a living, if they can avoid either, by defrauding someone out of a fee, for pretending to cure some manufactured disease? It seems almost a waste of time to argue such a self-evident proposition. I have known physicians of high standing who treated women for womb diseases which never had a real existence, and surgeons of large incomes to remove the female breast for a “supposed cancer;” and, that being the case, what would you expect from a less fortunate brother practitioner who is eking out a miserable existence?