Doctors Who Die Early

1906

The Principal Cause Is Said to Be Excessive Nervous Expenditure in Practice

The diseases which claim the most victims among physicians relatively to all males are gout and diabetes, and there is a high relative mortality from diseases of the nervous system, circulatory system and kidneys, says American Medicine.

From the nature of his habits the physician is not subject to accidents, and, though he is brought into contact with infection to a greater extent than other men, his preventive means are successful and his mortality from infection is very low. Freedom from prolonged muscular strains and high blood tension apparently saves him from arteriosclerosis, but suicide claims many, and so do the drug habits acquired by the nervously exhausted. It has been said that three-fourths of French morphine users are physicians.

The cause of the physician's early death is evidently the excessive nervous expenditure, insufficient rest and defective nutrition, inseparable from his calling, with its broken and restricted sleep, irregular hours of work, rest and meals, the worry when lives depend upon his judgment and the lack of a day of complete relaxation in each week. The physician who sees his patients every day in the week month after month and cannot learn to forget them when he goes home, merely burns the candle at both ends. He violates the law obeyed by every other animal, that there shall be short periods of moderate exertion interrupted by longer periods of rest when repairs are made. It is not too much work as a rule, but scattered work which prevents rest.