The Western News

Not often has the public had so good an exhibition of the characteristic attitude of the medical profession—which includes the profession of surgery—its feeling of responsibility, its unselfishness and its fidelity, as has been afforded by the great Austrian surgeon who has lately been operating in this country. He was called to Chicago to attend a child who had suffered since birth from a dislocation of the hip. The child's father, a man of large wealth, brought him, at great expense, to Chicago, because he was considered one of the greatest specialists in the world in cases of the kind. No sooner was the operation completed than the surgeon sought the hospitals of Chicago, St. Louis and other cities, and there, entirely without pay, he treated the children of the poor. Other physicians came to witness the operations, so that not only has the skill of this man changed the future for many small sufferers, but it will be disseminated in geometrical progression; for the doctors who saw the operations will, in turn, teach others. The course of Dr. Lorenz has attracted more than the usual attention only because the man himself is so well known and because he came to this country under peculiar circumstances. The standard of conduct of the medical profession is something of which one can hardly write without a glow of admiration. No profession in the world has a higher code of ethics. The Hippocratic oath is no longer administered, yet physicians still observe its obligations. They make public all discoveries and inventions which may benefit the race and take no patents upon nor profit from them. They give the same faithful service and exercise the same skill for a small fee as for a large one, and the amount of work which they do gratuitously is known only to themselves and to the recipients of their charity. The medical man is indeed a noble figure in our life. We take off our hats to him.