The Secrets of Specialists/Chapter 10

In considering the Medical and Surgical specialties which are suitable for an office practice, it is generally understood that the physician in charge has ceased to be a free bureau for general advice and distributing agent for invalids, as was the former custom of many general practitioners, who would dispose of their cancer patients to some cancer specialist or hospital; would allow their hernia patients to drift into the hands of some advertising "Rupture Specialists"; would send their throat and nose patients to some "Laryngologist," etc., while there are many learned and esteemed specialists throughout the country at this age of modern therapeutics, appliances and apparatus which are accessible to every physician, and the most excellent text books on all subjects of medicine and surgery are at his disposal, and by becoming familiar with the manipulation of one, and the tehnique given by the other, any physician of ordinary skill can, within a comparatively short time, cope with many diseases and conditions which it was formerly thought, should be treated by the "city physicians." Of all the physicians in the world the country general practitioner is the most resourceful, and has in the past years been compelled to adapt himself to circumstances and conditions; now that mechanical ingenuity has placed these modern therapeutic agencies within his reach at a reasonable outlay of money, and medical writers have given him the best of their knowledge and experience, there is no reason why every physician should not incorporate the treatment of many diseases in his practice that was formerly sent to the specialists, and receive the financial returns to which he is justly entitled.

​In adopting the office specialties, his first step is to become familiar with the physiologie apparatus outlined in the foregoing chapters, and the technique of their use; he should next endeavor to utilize them to the best of his ability, in connection with all the Medical and Surgical specialties which he can successfully master, and it is hoped, some of the minor specialties given in the following pages may render him some assistance in this field of labor.

There are two ways of specializing in medicine: one is to master the disease of one or two organs, or groups of organs, and the other is to master all the discases possible, irrespective of their organs.

There are very few physicians who have not entertained the idea that some time they would specialize, but could not decide on any particular specialty, thinking each field overcrowded; this is quite true in many respects, for our cities contain nearly as many specialists as they do general practitioners; therefore, "he who hesitates is lost."

In choosing specialties such as this publication is endeavoring to present, we would naturally select such diseases as are the most prevalent and frequently met with in office consultations. Very few physicians would care to specialize in the treatment of discase of the spleen, because he would be better remunerated for his services if he successfully treated the diseases peculiar to women, as this field is rich in clinical materials. It has been stated that every woman has some form of female weakness, therefore our fashionable gyneacologists are among the best salaried physicians in the country, and we often wonder why the late Dr. W. Todd Helmuth was inspired to write the following verse:

In selecting the profitable office specialties we naturally select the diseases which are the most common. The social evils offer a large scope, therefore, genito-urinary and venereal diseases make a profitable specialty. Statistics show that every eleventh man and every eighth woman, over forty years of age, have cancer. Every tenth adult person has some form of rectal disease; every twelfth man past thirty-five years of age is ruptured. Visit any public place and observe the number of deformities and blemishes of the face which should be corrected or removed; review the number of alcohol and drug habitues, living in your immediate vicinity, that could be encouraged to abandon their habits through the treatment you could administer. These, together with the long list of chronic ailments, rheumatism, catarrh, and all throat, nose and lung. Diseases of the prima vitae and nervous system, are the class of diseases which can be successfully incorporated in an office practice, and with a very few exceptions, these ailments can be as successfully treated by the office practitioner as they may be by many self-styled "specialists" who boast of their superior skill in the treatment of various diseases.