"Liberal and Inquiring"

As the clock struck twelve one night last week in Manhattan's statue-strewn Academy of Medicine, a handful of doctors paced the marble floor as nervously as any expectant fathers. They were awaiting results of the vote for the new officers of the New York County Medical Society. Never before in the Society's history had candidates campaigned on two opposing platforms. The baby had always been a boy. But this time nobody could be quite sure, for in last week's election there were two tickets: Progressive and Conservative. Unprecedented had been the labor pains; incalculable was the result.

At 1:30 the tellers came into the hall. The news was amazing; it was a hermaphrodite. The Progressives had won strategic posts for four of their seven candidates. Elected were: Dr. Ernst Philip Boas of Columbia, chairman of the Committee on Public Relations; Dr. Bernard Solomon Denzer of Mt. Sinai Hospital, chairman of the Committee on Medical Economics; Drs. Henry Barber Richardson of Cornell and Edward K. Barsky of Beth Israel Hospital, delegates in a group of 13 to the New York State Medical Convention.

No important conservatives were ousted --Dr. Samuel Joseph Kopetzky still remained editor of the official New York Medical Week, and Dr. Walter Palmer Anderton, new chairman, is a prominent representative of the old school. Not that the platform of the Progressives was revolutionary, for they offered no clear-cut, constructive program. Few of them agree on the merits of compulsory health insurance or of the Wagner Health Bill. What united them was a desire for full, free discussion on the problem of medical care. The Progressives banded together merely to: 1) "introduce a liberal and inquiring attitude towards . . . social problems"; 2) "stimulate the society to take the lead in the movement to improve medical care of the people of this city."

"The County Society," said the Progressives' manifesto, "should study without prejudice all reasonable proposals made for the solution of the problem of medical care [and] . . . encourage well-planned experimentation in this field."

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