Double Fees?

Doctors of Evanston, Highland Park, Ravinia and Lake Forest, Illinois communities along Lake Michigan shore north of Chicago, announced last week that they would charge double fees for calls they received after 7 p. m. Their decision excited comment in the Chicago Journal of Commerce, business newspaper:

"The physician must not expect as much money as a man of corresponding ability who is engaged in business. He must not expect as much leisure. He must realize he is an emergency man. Like the fireman, he must come sliding down the brass pole at the first sound of alarm.

"If physicians insist upon sacred periods of leisure, they must associate with one another, either as partners or as a corporation, and they must see to it that one or more of their number shall be constantly ready to respond to night calls.

"Physicians are jealous for their individualistic careers. They resent the development of medical corporations. But as sure as rain they are fostering that development by such a short-sighted procedure as an agreement to exact double fees for night visits."

The fact remains, as every physician and many a patient knows, that the doctor's fees are fitted to his patient's purse. Those Illinois doctors may charge the double fees to neurasthenics, cranks and flustery mothers with ill-natured babies whose night calls are unwarranted. The rich, too, may be charged double. But the needy and the veritably sick will be charged in proper measure, for medicine is still a profession in Illinois.