No
subsequent friction would have been possible.
Had the Insurance scheme been so framed, it is perhaps doubtful whether
it would have been so largely based on the old contract system. Club
medical practice has long been in discredit, alike from the point of
view of patient and doctor. It furnishes the least satisfactory form of
medical relief for the patient, less adequate than that he could obtain
either as a private patient or as a hospital patient. The doctor, on
his side, though he may find it a very welcome addition to his income,
regards Club practice as semi-charitable, and, moreover, a form of
charity in which he is often imposed on; he seldom views his club
patients with much satisfaction, and unless he is a self-sacrificing
enthusiast, it is not to them that his best attention, his best time,
his most expensive drugs, are devoted. To perpetuate and enlarge the
club system of practice and to glorify it by affixing to it a national
seal of approval, was, therefore, a somewhat risky experiment, not
wisely to be attempted without careful consultation with those most
concerned.
Another point might then also have become clear: the whole tendency of
medicine is towards a recognition of the predominance of Hygiene. The
modern aim is to prevent disease. The whole national system of medicine
is being slowly though steadily built up in recognition of the great
fact that the interests of Health come before the interests of Disease.
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