The Politics of Medicine in Britain and the United States

Abstract

In one of those delightful essays in The Doctor's Saddle-Bag,1 a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Joseph Garland, recalled the advice given by the "autocrat of the breakfast table" to the young practitioner: "Do not dabble in the muddy sewer of politics, nor linger by the enchanted stream of literature, nor dig in the far-off fields for hidden waters of alien sciences — the great practitioners are generally those who concentrate all their powers on their business."Such advice has some considerable attraction, and at the time it was given, it may have . . .