“But see here, the dividend will hardly pay for operations and sickness. Suppose the idlers fall sick?”
Davis looked surprised. “Hadn’t you gathered that health service is free? It obviously has to be. The community can’t afford to let anyone be sick for fear of contagion and unsocial mal-adjustment. If medicine hadn’t been socialized we couldn’t have stamped out syphilis and gonorrhea for example, and our present social standards couldn’t have developed. Medical men are public servants and among the most highly paid in the community.”
“Doesn’t that tend to make medicine un-enterprising and give it a tendency to fall into a rut?”
“Did it for the army and navy in your day? Before your time they were private professions, you will remember. However, a physician need not be a public servant. He can hang out his shingle if he likes. But with higher returns for public practice, plus every opportunity for research with unlimited facilities and no economic restrictions on the expense of treatment, practically all of the best ones prefer to work for the government.”
“That reminds me of another objection. Won’t everybody ask to be treated by the best physicians?”
“They ask, but if a physician has more cases than he can handle, he picks the interesting and difficult ones, and mediocre physicians get the commonplace ones. That works out best for everybody. In your day a wealthy hypochondriac could command the services of valuable men who should have been on the difficult cases.”
“That’s fair enough, I guess. Medicine has always fascinated me.”
“You ought to fly up to the United States Medical Academy some day and get them to show you around. It will open your eyes. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last hundred and fifty years.”
“Thanks for the idea. I’ll do that someday. But to return to our argument. I’m a die-hard. Everything may appear rosy right now, but I believe that I see the seeds of decay in this system. Doesn’t it encourage the reproduction of the unfit in unlimited numbers? Wasn’t Malthus right in the long run? Aren’t you steadily weakening the race by making life too easy?”
“I don’t believe so. I think your fears are groundless. The pathologically unfit are inhibited from breeding by a combination of special economic inducements and the mild coercion of the threat of Coventry. The exceptionally brilliant and creative persons are sought after as parents. A famous surgeon, musician, or inventor will receive literally thousands of invitations to impregnate women who desire exceptional children or covet the social honor of bearing the offspring of genius. From a physical standpoint the race is being re-tailored by the development of gland therapy and immunization. A baby born today will never grow excessively fat nor emaciated, and couldn’t catch typhoid fever if he slept with a victim of it. Instead of protecting a child from infection we modify the genes of his grandfather so that the baby has ten times the hardihood of a jungle savage. As for Doctor Malthus, he lived before the day of voluntary conception. If we need to limit the population, we are prepared to do it.”
“Well, you’ve given me a lot to chew over and a lot of new angles to investigate. But I can’t help feeling that there’s a black swan lurking. Maybe I’ll be back at you in a few days.”
Davis chuckled. “Go to it, son. You’ve given me the first real workout I’ve had in years. Is there any more port in that bottle? That’s enough. Thanks.”
XI
Olga arrived one morning to find Perry walking the floor, and smoking. A pile of cigarette stubs alongside a barely-touched breakfast showed his state of mind. He flung her a curt greeting. Olga grinned.
“Little Merry Sunshine, no less. What’s the matter, dopey? Come down with the Never-Get-Overs?”
Perry ground the butt of his cigarette savagely into a saucer. “All very well for you to joke, but it’s serious to me. It’s this damned place. I’m sick of it.”
Olga’s face became serious. “What’s the trouble with this place, Perry? Anything wrong? Anything you need? Somebody been unkind to you?”
He scowled. “No. Nothing you can do anything about. The place is swell , and everybody is decent to me. I’m just sick of it, that’s all. I know I have to stay here and need to stay here, and I’m not arguing about my sentence, but you can’t make me like it. I’m going stir-crazy.”
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