“How can anyone expect to get or give good service under such conditions?” she asked.
“I stood it a long time,” she continued, “because I liked him so much as a man. But when I found myself getting no better and gradually getting into a chronic state, I made up my mind it was time to call in someone who would take some interest in me medically and give time enough to the case to enable him to treat it properly.
“I believe Dr.________is an able physician and a well meaning man,” she continued, “but he is working under a wrong policy and does not realize it. If he would charge three times as much and see one-third as many patients they would be satisfied and he would be happier, get better results and be just as well or better off financially”.
With rare discernment this highly intelligent woman had put her finger upon one of the commonest and most virulent points of “focal infection” in the medical body. Look at the situation for a few moments.
Here is a man of genial personality, good native ability, of excellent training as a prescriber, long experience in medicine and surgery, high reputation in his community and popular among his patients, who has allowed himself to become overcrowded with work, hasty and superficial in his examinations, inaccurate in his prescribing and unsuccessful as to result-and all largely because of a bad financial policy.
It is known that this physician charges the same fees today that he did thirty years ago. The evidence goes to show that he has made little or no progress in professional skill and technical efficiency during that time-has in fact retrograded; also, that some of his patients know it.
It is reasonable to assume that under an enlightened financial policy and a consistent program based upon right ethical and financial principle, conscientiously carried out, it would have been possible for him to make substantial progress in skill and technical efficiency and become an honor to the profession. Under such conditions his services would now be worth at least five times as much as they were thirty years ago, and he not only would be justified, but would have no difficulty, in charging and collecting proportionately larger fees-provided he actually rendered the service and got the results.
Here, by the way, is about the only saving feature of this case-that he had not yielded to that particular form of greed which has led others to charge high fees while failing to give the kind and quality of service that alone justifies them. Probably his “Inward monitor” has been able to make its voice heard distinctly enough occasionally to restrain him in this respect.
It would have been better for all parties concerned if he communed with that higher and wiser self more frequently. As things are, he is charging very small fees for very poor service- in which there is a kind of consistency-but it is still open to question whether the service he gives is really worth anything. This particular patient did not consider it worth anything to her and frankly said so; and she will not fail to tell others. Who will say that she is not right?.
The other instance refered to was in connection with the case of a baby, six months old, the child of wealthy parents who live in a New Jersey town. The case presented certain puzzling features which had baffled the skill of the conscientious young allopathic local physician. He had finally advised the parents to employ a New York specialist (allopathic), whom he recommended highly as his former teacher, the author of books on the treatment, care and feeding of infants, and of high standing as a pediatrist.
The mother narrated how she had taken her baby to New York, had been received by a uniformed attendant and ushered to the desk of an assistant physician whose duty it was to register the case and make a preliminary examination and diagnosis. He occupied about two minutes in the performance of this duty. He then called a nurse, who took the card which he had written, escorted her to the waiting room and left her, stating that she would be called in her turn.
The lady counted eighteen patients already awaiting their turn, took out her watch, noted the time and began to wonder how long she would have to wait. At the end of forty minutes the nurse conducted her into the presence of the great man and introduced her, handing him the registration card at the same time.
He shook hands with the mother, told her how pleased he was to see any patient of his former student, glanced at the baby in her arms and then read the card-half aloud: “Ah! Six months-inability to retain food-vomiting-gastric insufficiency-um-ah-I see”.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.