Professional atmosphere and morals, or, Patents and secrets vs. liberal profession.

  • Meriam, Horatio C., 1849-1911.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Professional atmosphere and morals, or, Patents and secrets vs. liberal profession. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    It is possible for a Sixth or Eighth avenue dentist to purchase the entire right for ]^ew York City, and those who practice between Sixth and Madison avenues become dependent on him for permission to study or use. He may demand the right to inspect books at any time, have them brought to him, or prescribe in what form they shall be kept, have the lists of patients for whom the operations are performed sent to him as often as need be, and rightfully refer to any he controls as a man who works for me. It often calls for as much expense in time and thought to prepare a paper or perfect the details of an operation as to invent an instrument. The dentist who is obliged to pay his brother for the right to use instruments, may not be able to invent another, and so get even. He may, however, be able to devise a new way of filling, or process of construction, and as he cannot dispose of this like an instrument, he must sell to a company who will work it on the license or royalty plan. For, bear in mind that up to this time we have not been willing to face the ques- tion of the falsehood of patents in a liberal profession, but have admitted their place in dentistry, and have only fought to test the legality of those where license or royalty has been asked. We strain at the gnat of the Tooth Crown Company, but swallow with- out trouble the camel of illiberal patents and secret materials. We should be teachers, not traders, and condemn alike all the men who sell the profession into the hands of trade. At the present time some are selling the control of instruments to makers, others pro- cesses and operations to companies who wish to license; thus pro- viding an upper and a nether millstone between which the great body of the profession can be ground exceeding small. Many patent defenders say that a man should get his pay for time and labor. With this simple statement there can be no quarrel. The professional view is this: that in getting his pay, he is under moral obligation not to injure his profession, nor by reason of his invention give power over the profession or any fellow-member to any one. That if by reason of it he has aided oppression of makers of limited means, or has subjected them to litigation, he makes him- self and the profession a party to illiberal motives and tendencies. In a liberal profession mutual help, exchange of thought, whether embodied in instruments, essays, or consultations, should be a suffi- cient compensation, and it is so held in the medical profession. I read with shame and professional humiliation of a teacher who makes an appliance of a secret material, patented, so that no one else can make it, sold through a sole agent to combination dealers only. Exclusive in conception, exclusive in execution, exclusive in manner of distribution. When this is the teacher, what will be the student ? I am frequently met with the remark, I guess if any of those