As remarked in first chapter, there are at any given time in these glorious United States of America two million people sick, which means the same thing as if these two million were continuously sick, for as fast as some of the two million recover there are as many more waiting to take the vacated beds.

Not all of these are wage-earners, of course, but figuring the average income for every one at so much per capita, we shall get a total in lost wages of over one billion dollars every year, saying nothing at all about the expense of the care, which is many times more than this.

Take a hundred dollars to the hospital to begin a stay there as a patient and how long will this last you? Two weeks? Hardly, unless you are a ward case, when you might stay there two months, if you were to depend on the care of the staff and the perfunctory routine nursing. Even then the cost of maintenance of each patient far exceeds this figure, and the state pays the difference--you, in other words, if you are a taxpayer.

So, if wages unearned amount to a billion dollars a year, the care will equal not less than three billion, making a total loss of four billion dollars yearly in this country through illness.

And even this is a mere bagatelle, for the greater loss is through unaccomplished tasks, an army restrained from productive pursuit being necessary to care for these who are on the shelf.

Six billion dollars would not reimburse this country for her losses through illness every year, a loss that is wholly preventable, therefore inexcusable.

Most people understand any proposition better in figures, but not when we reach billions, for these are beyond human comprehension, as a rule; we understand a loss of a few hundred dollars a good deal better.

It is becoming a fearsome thing to the average wage-earner to call in a doctor, for it is no longer the good old family physician who will give out useful advice and a little medicine (that never does any good); but now to be sick is to fall into the maw of the scientific medical machine, with its diagnostic clinic, its various specialties, its operations; and the wage-earner, after experiencing a slight indisposition, perhaps, finds himself the center of a great scientific interest. He is sent here and there, he is x-rayed, his blood is analysed, his stomach contents, his urine, his stool are all examined, even his spine is punctured in the frantic search to connect his illness with syphilis, and when he gets even half way through with his preliminary examination he is deeply impressed with the extreme gravity of his case.

A writer a few years ago, living in New York, tells the following story of his experience in trying to get relief from a common cold. He noticed a doctor's sign in his block, and thinking it noble to patronise a neighbor he dropped into the doctor's office during hours and stated his complaint.

The doctor told him promptly that he was not an ordinary physician, but a specialist, and that he should go for this trouble to the famous Dr. So-and-so, who specialised in throat affections. There was a charge of ten dollars for this information, and the doctor's card was to be presented to the great Dr. So-and-so in order that this great man should know that this was a referred case from the doctor in this particular block.

A visit to the great Dr. So-and-so developed the fact that the great man was too busy operating at the time to see any one, but the assistant volunteered to make an examination of the throat, nothing but the throat, as this office was limited to throats only. This disclosed a very serious condition of the throat that demanded immediate operation, not so very immediate, for the great man was too busy to do any more operations today, but the patient was to come tomorrow at ten o'clock in the morning, when he would have his operation.

Meantime the cold persisted. Next morning the patient presented himself for his operation, the great man examined the throat, complimented his assistant on the diagnosis, and proceeded with the operation, whatever this was.

The patient paid two hundred and fifty dollars for the operation, but was refused information as to its nature.

However, the great man had noticed evidences of acidosis in the mouth and recommended the patient to go to the eminent Dr. Somethingelse, who was a specialist in nutritional troubles, and who would give him a diet that would correct this phase, also accompanying his direction with his personal card so that his friend, the nutritionist, would know that he, the great operator, had remembered him with a referred case.

The nutritionist prescribed a diet for which he made the nominal charge of twenty-five dollars, making a total of two hundred and eighty-five dollars paid to these three men for treatment of a cold for which nothing had as yet been done, and it still persisted.

Disgusted, the patient hied him to his house, drank a copious libation of Epsom salts, followed by much hot lemonade, took a hot bath till the perspiration started, wrapped himself up warmly in blankets and slept, and awoke without his cold.

What does it cost? Whatever the traffic will bear.

This is not an isolated case, nor yet a greatly exaggerated one, for medicine has become a business, and the successful man is the one who can create the most business.

Not only does illness cost plenty, inexcusably too much, but too often the wages have stopped, there is more expense than normal at home, and the result is a depleted exchequer; perhaps a heavy encumbrance of debt as a drag on future earnings.

It is not greatly to be wondered that the plain average citizen is becoming afraid to consult the doctor, for this is too often but the entering wedge for unusual expense that may persist for a long time.

When we reflect that this expense is all the result of preventable illness, does this not give us pause in our thinking, if the connection is made between habit and sickness?