In connection with the above comparison, in which it is shown that Germany has proportionately less than half as many doctors as the United States, it will be interesting to learn the views of the German profession. The Berlin correspondent of the Medical Press writes that the “Deutcher Ærztebund,” Society of German physicians, felt it to be their duty to warn the guardians of young men studying in the gymnasiums or high schools, against entering the medical profession, the state of overcrowding being so great as to _insure disastrous_ consequences. In glancing over the above figures, there is one very important point which is greatly in favor of the German profession and militates against the Americans. It is the enormous patent-medicine trade and quacking that is done through it in the United States; on the whole, this has been calculated to amount to at least fifty per cent of all the doctoring that is done; that means, that where one hundred doctors now practice for a living, fifty more could make a similar living, were it not for the patent and quack medicine trade, which, in some of the German States, is almost prohibited, and in others I know it is entirely inhibited. When the Society of German physicians warns the German people that an overcrowding “insures disastrous consequences,” what does it mean? This is a question which, we presume, was answered in Germany, and it is certainly worth our while that we should answer it here, and in this we have decidedly the advantage, because in that country the answer was entirely based upon what was anticipated, while in this we can answer from what we have already realized, namely, disastrous consequences to honor and to integrity on the one side, and to health and security against imposition on the other. To this I have already referred. Everyone competent of judging, and who has lived in that country, knows from study and observation that the arrangements and conveniences there for treating the sick are in a much higher state of perfection than with us. Hospitals and physicians are as accessible to all classes as the most humane and philanthropic heart can desire, and now we learn that if this wholesome state of affairs shall continue with less than half the proportion of doctors that we have here, there must be no further increase of physicians, or it would insure _disaster_. This statement and warning a close and careful observer clearly appreciates. The writer was personally acquainted with a large number of German practitioners while in that country, and knows as an actual fact that while their fees were and are much smaller than anything ever paid in this country, they had not overmuch to do, and were only leisurely employed. This applies to some of the greatest and world-renowned medical professors, as well as to the ordinary general practitioners. But there is a reason for all this, too. These men as a rule are honest, they are no money grabbers, they are