Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/95

 vice-presidency of the puissant New Idea Medical Instrument and Furniture Company of Jersey City. In celebration he gave a final address to the entire medical school on "The Art and Science of Furnishing the Doctor's Office."

He was a neatly finished person, Geake, eye-glassed and enthusiastic and fond of people. He beamed on his loving students and cried:

"Gentlemen, the trouble with too many doctors, even those splendid old pioneer war-horses who through mud and storm, through winter's chill blast and August's untempered heat, go bringing cheer and surcease from pain to the world's humblest, yet even these old Nestors not so infrequently settle down in a rut and never shake themselves loose. Now that I am leaving this field where I have labored so long and happily, I want to ask every man jack of you to read, before you begin to practise medicine, not merely your Rosenau and Howell and Gray, but also, as a preparation for being that which all good citizens must be, namely, practical men, a most valuable little manual of modern psychology, 'How to Put Pep in Salesmanship,' by Grosvenor A. Bibby. For don't forget, gentlemen, and this is my last message to you, the man worth while is not merely the man who takes things with a smile but also the man who's trained in philosophy, practical philosophy, so that instead of day-dreaming and spending all his time talking about 'ethics,' splendid though they are, and 'charity,' glorious virtue though that be, yet he never forgets that unfortunately the world judges a man by the amount of good hard cash he can lay away. The graduates of the University of Hard Knocks judge a physician as they judge a business man, not merely by his alleged 'high ideals' but by the horsepower he puts into carrying them out—and making them pay! And from a scientific standpoint, don't overlook the fact that the impression of properly remunerated competence which you make on a patient is of just as much importance, in these days of the new psychology, as the drugs you get into him or the operations he lets you get away with. The minute he begins to see that other folks appreciate and reward your skill, that minute he must begin to feel your power and so to get well.

"Nothing is more important in inspiring him than to have such an office that as soon as he steps into it, you have begun to sell him the idea of being properly cured. I don't care