Golden Age of Medicine

Note: at the same time as FSA photographers visually documented the American experience, writers and journalists commissioned by the Federal Writers Project set out to document the American experience by interviewing men and women from all walks of life. Historians now use these materials in their efforts to understand our past. For more information about the Federal Writers Project narratives, see the Library of Congress’s American Memory page.

The following is an excerpt from a longer document. The title was assigned later to the document.

"In the Hospital" (excerpt)
From the Federal Writers Project Collection, Library of Congress

1. Date and time of interview: March 28, 1939 5 o'clock. P.M.
2. Place of interview: Kings County Hospital [New York]
3. Name and address of informant: Resident Physician (Request made not to use name.)

HOCUS POCUS IN MEDICINE

There's plenty hocus pocus in our profession. Some of it serves a good purpose. That's what's known as the bedside manner. It serves a psychological purpose. There's a visiting doctor comes to the hospital who knows as little about medicine as ... we all think he's dumb. But you should see the manners he puts on. You would think he was the country's greatest doctor . He goes up to a patient, takes her hand and pats it, and says, "Fine! You're improving wonderfully! You look fine today!" And sure enough you can see the patient actually improving. The temperature goes down, color comes into the cheeks, the eyes shine. There's an actual improvement. Now every doctor can't do that. That's why some women go around praising their doctors , who may be terrible, to the skies, and other women go around cursing their doctors , who may be very good, to hell. There's other kinds of hocus pocus which doesn't serve any good purpose. Doctors aren't supposed to advertise, but some of them get lots of publicity by other ways. There's the doctor who got Lindbergh to make a mechanical heart. Now any glassblower could make him a glass heart according to directions, but of course when you collaborate with Lindbergh you get front-page publicity. Then there are doctors who make sensational statements, as, for instance, you can't tell a woman's health by looking at her because women paint their cheeks and fingernails. Now, any doctor knows that all you have to do is examine a woman's eyes, by pulling down the skin on the bottom of the eye, and you can get as good an idea of her blood condition as from the color of cheeks and fingernails.

Medicine lends itself more easily to quackery than other professions. Announce the discovery of a new style of shoe and very few people will get excited about it. But announce the discovery of a new style of shoe that will cure weak ankles, straighten out the toes, remove bunions, and prolong the span of life, and the excitement will amount almost to panic.