Under such conditions no statistics as to the graduation of
professional ability among doctors are available. Assuming that
doctors are normal men and not magicians (and it is unfortunately
very hard to persuade people to admit so much and thereby destroy
the romance of doctoring) we may guess that the medical
profession, like the other professions, consists of a small
percentage of highly gifted persons at one end, and a small
percentage of altogether disastrous duffers at the other. Between
these extremes comes the main body of doctors (also, of course,
with a weak and a strong end) who can be trusted to work under
regulations with more or less aid from above according to the
gravity of the case. Or, to put it in terms of the cases, there
are cases that present no difficulties, and can be dealt with by
a nurse or student at one end of the scale, and cases that
require watching and handling by the very highest existing skill
at the other; whilst between come the great mass of cases which
need visits from the doctor of ordinary ability and from the
chiefs of the profession in the proportion of, say, seven to
none, seven to one, three to one, one to one, or, for a day or
two, none to one. Such a service is organized at present only in
hospitals; though in large towns the practice of calling in the
consultant acts, to some extent, as a substitute for it. But in
the latter case it is quite unregulated except by professional
etiquet, which, as we have seen, has for its object, not the
health of the patient or of the community at large, but the
protection of the doctor's livelihood and the concealment of his
errors. And as the consultant is an expensive luxury, he is a
last resource rather, as he should be, than a matter of course,
in all cases where the general practitioner is not equal to the