Keeping Well [excerpt]

They [doctors] are most useful and important servants of their fellows. They often get no proper compensation. Sometimes, they are very extravagant in their demands; and need a little reproof as well as others.
     The physicians attendant on President McKinley upon his assassination made an effort to get $100,000 from Congress after his death. The Poughkeepsie Eagle of October 17th, 1901, justly rebuked this.
     In endorsement of the sentiment expressed, this writer furnished a brief article; a part of which is here inserted:

Mr. Editor:
     Will you permit one of your constant readers to publicly thank you for your just and sensible editorial of this Thursday, October 17th, based upon the report that bills to the amount of $100,000 are to be rendered to Congress for the services of physicians and surgeons attendant upon our stricken President during his sufferings in the days follow- [394][395] ing the cruel assault upon him that resulted in his tragic death.
     Surely, none of us desire to reflect upon these men of science, or to intimate that they did not do all they could to save the life of their distinguished patient. Indeed, perhaps many will always believe that excessive desire led to a multiplication of efforts that were too much for the strength of the sufferer. But, with no disposition to assume the role of critic, I want to confirm your statement: that the outcome proved beyond question, the utter uselessness of all that was done; and, just when many were preparing to glorify modern surgery in almost a forgetfulness of the God who rules and reigns over us all, the entire futility of human wisdom, and the vanity of human boastfulness, was made to so appear that the doctors themselves have remained quite silent since, and been compelled to subside, because unable to justify their own confident predictions. We should all have rejoiced, if the means employed could have been successful in rescuing the President from the jaws of death. But God ordered otherwise, and let us all manifest our submission. And let none bring upon themselves the reputation of seeking to profit, financially, out of the great sorrow that has called forth so much lamentation.