The profession and the public have a large mutual interest which unites them in a common task and draws them toward a single objective. That interest consists of a surplusage of unnecessary, untreated and inadequately treated disease and impairment, which, in its totality, constitutes a waiting field of medical practice from two to five times greater than the present occupied field of medicine. The last statement constitutes the major premise of this paper, and is so related to what follows as to make its assimilation by the digestive or analytic process advisable before other related matters are considered. We turn, then, to a brief and rather general analysis of the unoccupied field of medicine.Beginning with maternity, we find from 25 to 35 per cent., say an average of 30 per cent., of the births of this country, a total of approximately 750,000 births a year, unattended by physicians. These women pass
Too many cooks in health administration is the impending danger, suggests Dr. Rankin. It is time for the A.P.H.A. to insist on a “whole-time” Health Department for the Central Government. Health and medical associations should coöperate to effect this. They should find out what needs to be done and use their influence to have it done.
In this rather brief paper, Doctor Rankin outlines the problem which was the subject of an interesting and important session of the meetings at Rochester.
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