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Managerial Accounting, 16e (Garrison)
Chapter 8 Master Budgeting

1) The basic idea underlying responsibility accounting is that a manager should be held
responsible for those items—and only those items—that the manager can actually control to a
significant extent.

2) The budgeted income statement is typically prepared before the budgeted balance sheet.

3) Control involves developing goals and preparing various budgets to achieve those goals.

4) A continuous or perpetual budget is a 12-month budget that rolls forward one month (or quarter)
as the current month (or quarter) is completed.

5) The cash budget is the starting point in preparing the master budget.

6) The master budget consists of a number of separate but interdependent budgets.

7) The production budget is typically prepared prior to the sales budget.

8) The production budget is typically prepared before the direct materials budget.

9) The selling and administrative budget is typically prepared before the cash budget.

10) A benefit from budgeting is that it forces managers to think about and plan for the future.

11) One of the weaknesses of budgets is that they are of little value in uncovering potential
bottlenecks.

12) One disadvantage of budgeting is that budgeting makes it more difficult to coordinate the
activities of the entire organization.

13) Cash collections in a schedule of cash collections typically consist of collections on sales made
to customers in prior periods plus collections on sales made in the current budget period.

14) The number of units to be produced in a period can be determined by adding the expected sales
to the desired ending inventory and then deducting the beginning inventory.

15) In a production budget, if the number of units in finished goods inventory at the end of the
period is less than the number of units in finished goods inventory at the beginning of the period,
then the expected number of units sold is less than the number of units to be produced during the
period.

16) In the merchandise purchases budget, the required purchases (in units) for a period can be
determined by subtracting the beginning merchandise inventory (in units) from the budgeted sales
(in units) and desired ending merchandise inventory (in units).

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Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill
17) When preparing a direct materials budget, beginning inventory for raw materials should be
added to production needs, and desired ending inventory should be subtracted to determine the
amount of raw materials to be purchased.

18) The direct labor budget begins with the required production in units from the production
budget.

19) The direct labor budget shows the direct labor-hours required to satisfy the production budget.

20) In the manufacturing overhead budget, the non-cash charges (such as depreciation) are
deducted from the total budgeted manufacturing overhead to determine the expected cash
disbursements for manufacturing overhead.

21) The manufacturing overhead budget lists all costs of production other than direct materials and
direct labor.

22) The selling and administrative expense budget lists all costs of production other than direct
materials and direct labor.

23) The budgeted variable selling and administrative expense is calculated by multiplying the
budgeted unit sales by the variable selling and administrative expense per unit.

24) The disbursements section of a cash budget consists of all cash payments for the period except
cash payments for dividends.

25) The usual starting point for a master budget is:

A) the direct materials purchase budget.
B) the budgeted income statement.
C) the sales forecast or sales budget.
D) the production budget.

26) Which of the following budgets are prepared before the sales budget?

Budgeted Income Statement Direct Labor Budget

A) Yes Yes
B) Yes No
C) No Yes
D) No No

A) Choice A
B) Choice B
C) Choice C
D) Choice D

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27) There are various budgets within the master budget. One of these budgets is the production
budget. Which of the following BEST describes the production budget?
A) It details the required direct labor hours.
B) It details the required raw materials purchases.
C) It is calculated based on the sales budget and the desired ending inventory.
D) It summarizes the costs of producing units for the budget period.

28) When preparing a direct materials budget, the required purchases of raw materials in units
equals:
A) raw materials needed to meet the production schedule + desired ending inventory of raw
materials − beginning inventory of raw materials.
B) raw materials needed to meet the production schedule − desired ending inventory of raw
materials − beginning inventory of raw materials.
C) raw materials needed to meet the production schedule − desired ending inventory of raw
materials + beginning inventory of raw materials.
D) raw materials needed to meet the production schedule + desired ending inventory of raw
materials + beginning inventory of raw materials.

29) Which of the following statements is NOT correct concerning the Manufacturing Overhead
Budget?
A) The Manufacturing Overhead Budget provides a schedule of all costs of production other than
direct materials and labor costs.
B) The Manufacturing Overhead Budget shows only the variable portion of manufacturing
overhead.
C) The Manufacturing Overhead Budget shows the expected cash disbursements for
manufacturing overhead.
D) The Manufacturing Overhead Budget is prepared after the Sales Budget.

30) Which of the following statements is NOT correct concerning the Cash Budget?
A) It is not necessary to prepare any other budgets before preparing the Cash Budget.
B) The Cash Budget should be prepared before the Budgeted Income Statement.
C) The Cash Budget should be prepared before the Budgeted Balance Sheet.
D) The Cash Budget builds on earlier budgets and schedules as well as additional data.

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31) All of Gaylord Corporation's sales are on account. Thirty-five percent of the sales on account
are collected in the month of sale, 45% in the month following sale, and the remainder are
collected in the second month following sale. The following are budgeted sales data for the
company:

January February March April

Total sales $50,000 $60,000 $40,000 $30,000

What is the amount of cash that should be collected in March?

A) $24,000
B) $37,000
C) $41,000
D) $51,000

32) Seventy percent of Pitkin Corporation's sales are collected in the month of sale, 20% in the
month following sale, and 10% in the second month following sale. The following are budgeted
sales data for the company:

January February March April

Budgeted sales $200,000 $300,000 $350,000 $250,000

Total budgeted cash collections in April would be:

A) $175,000
B) $275,000
C) $70,000
D) $30,000

33) The BRS Corporation makes collections on sales according to the following schedule:

30% in month of sale

60% in month following sale
10% in second month following sale

The following sales have been budgeted:

Sales
April $ 140,000
May $ 130,000
June $ 150,000

Budgeted cash collections in June would be:

A) $137,000
B) $85,000
C) $45,000
D) $123,000
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34) Sirignano Corporation produces and sells one product. The budgeted selling price per unit is
$84. Budgeted unit sales for October, November, December, and January are 8,400, 12,000,
13,800, and 14,300 units, respectively. All sales are on credit with 40% collected in the month of
the sale and 60% in the following month. The expected cash collections for November is closest
to:
A) $826,560
B) $705,600
C) $423,360
D) $403,200

35) All of Pocast Corporation's sales are on account. Sixty percent of the credit sales are collected
in the month of sale, 30% in the month following sale, and 10% in the second month following
sale. The following are budgeted sales data for the company:

January February March April

Total sales $ 700,000 $ 500,000 $ 400,000 $ 600,000

Cash receipts in April are expected to be:

A) $530,000
B) $360,000
C) $460,000
D) $410,000

36) Budgeted sales in Acer Corporation over the next four months are given below:

September October November December

Budgeted sales $120,000 $140,000 $180,000 $160,000

Thirty percent of the company's sales are for cash and 70% are on account. Collections for sales on
account follow a stable pattern as follows: 50% of a month's credit sales are collected in the month
of sale, 30% are collected in the month following sale, and 20% are collected in the second month
following sale. Given these data, cash collections for December should be:
A) $141,800
B) $100,500
C) $118,700
D) $161,400

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37) Corvi Corporation produces and sells one product. The budgeted selling price per unit is $126.
Budgeted unit sales are shown below:

July August September October

Budgeted unit sales 7,300 11,500 14,200 12,100

All sales are on credit with 40% collected in the month of the sale and 60% in the following month.
The expected cash collections for August is closest to:
A) $551,880
B) $579,600
C) $919,800
D) $1,131,480

38) Sioux Corporation is estimating the following sales for the first four months of next year:

January $ 210,000
February $ 280,000
March $ 340,000
April $ 370,000

Sales are normally collected 60% in the month of sale and 40% in the month following the sale.
Based on this information, how much cash should Sioux expect to collect during the month of
April?
A) $370,000
B) $222,000
C) $119,000
D) $358,000

39) Jeanclaude Corporation produces and sells one product. The budgeted selling price per unit is
$105. Budgeted unit sales for July, August, September, and October are 7,400, 7,500, 13,800, and
15,300 units, respectively. All sales are on credit. Regarding credit sales, 40% are collected in the
month of the sale and 60% in the following month.

The budgeted accounts receivable balance at the end of August is closest to:
A) $525,000
B) $315,000
C) $472,500
D) $787,500

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40) Crocetti Corporation makes one product and has provided the following information to help
prepare the master budget for the next four months of operations:

Budgeted selling price per unit $ 121

Budgeted unit sales (all on credit):
January 7,000
February 7,500
March 11,900
April 14,900

Credit sales are collected:

40% in the month of the sale
60% in the following month

The budgeted accounts receivable balance at the end of February is closest to:
A) $544,500
B) $907,500
C) $605,000
D) $363,000

41) Parwin Corporation plans to sell 23,000 units during August. If the company has 8,000 units
on hand at the start of the month, and plans to have 9,000 units on hand at the end of the month,
how many units must be produced during the month?
A) 24,000
B) 22,000
C) 32,000
D) 31,000

42) Frolic Corporation has budgeted sales and production over the next quarter as follows:

July August September

Sales in units 70,000 83,000 ?
Production in units 73,250 84,750 91,750

The company has 17,500 units of product on hand at July 1. 25% of the next month's sales in units
should be on hand at the end of each month. October sales are expected to be 97,000 units.
Budgeted sales for September would be (in units):
A) 88,000
B) 90,000
C) 86,000
D) 84,000

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43) The following information was taken from the production budget of Piwte Corporation for
next quarter:

January February March

Units to be produced 128,000 140,000 152,000
Desired ending inventory of finished goods 30,000 36,000 38,000

How many units is the company expecting to sell in the month of February?
A) 132,000
B) 138,000
C) 135,000
D) 134,000

44) Fiwrt Corporation manufactures and sells stainless steel coffee mugs. Expected mug sales
Fiwrt (in units) for the next three months are as follows:

October November December

Budgeted unit sales 30,000 36,000 34,000

Fiwrt likes to maintain a finished goods inventory equal to 30% of the next month's estimated
sales. How many mugs should Fiwrt plan on producing during the month of November?
A) 35,400 mugs
B) 26,800 mugs
C) 36,000 mugs
D) 34,300 mugs

45) Masde Corporation produces and sells Product CharlieD. To guard against stockouts, the
company requires that 25% of the next month's sales be on hand at the end of each month.
Budgeted sales of Product CharlieD over the next four months are:

June July August September

Budgeted sales in units 40,000 60,000 50,000 80,000

Budgeted production for August would be:

A) 83,000 units
B) 107,000 units
C) 77,000 units
D) 80,000 units

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46) Paradise Corporation budgets on an annual basis for its fiscal year. The following beginning
and ending inventory levels (in units) are planned for next year.

Beginning Inventory Ending Inventory

Raw material* 30,000 40,000
Finished goods 70,000 60,000

* Three pounds of raw material are needed to produce each unit of finished product.

If Paradise Corporation plans to sell 510,000 units during next year, the number of units it would
have to manufacture during the year would be:
A) 500,000 units
B) 520,000 units
C) 510,000 units
D) 570,000 units

47) Stut Corporation, a retailer, plans to sell 28,000 units of Product X during the month of August.
If the company has 6,000 units on hand at the start of the month, and plans to have 9,000 units on
hand at the end of the month, how many units of Product X must be purchased from the supplier
during the month?
A) 37,000
B) 25,000
C) 31,000
D) 28,000

48) Douglas Corporation plans to sell 24,000 units of Product A during July and 30,000 units
during August. Sales of Product A during June were 25,000 units. Past experience has shown that
end-of-month inventory should equal 3,000 units plus 30% of the next month's sales. On June 30
this requirement was met. Based on these data, how many units of Product A must be produced
during the month of July?
A) 28,800
B) 22,200
C) 24,000
D) 25,800

49) The following information relates to Mapfes Manufacturing Corporation for next quarter:

January February March

Expected sales (in units) 440,000 390,000 380,000
Desired ending finished goods inventory (in units) 39,000 38,000 40,000

How many units should the company plan on producing for the month of February?
A) 428,000 units
B) 391,000 units
C) 390,000 units
D) 389,000 units
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50) Jannusch Corporation makes one product. Budgeted unit sales for July, August, September,
and October are 10,000, 11,600, 13,300, and 12,700 units, respectively. The ending finished goods
inventory should equal 20% of the following month's sales. The budgeted required production for
August is closest to:
A) 11,600 units
B) 11,940 units
C) 14,260 units
D) 16,580 units

51) On October 1, Gala Corporation has 300 units of Product XYZ on hand. The company plans to
sell 1,200 units of Product XYZ during October, and plans to have 500 units on hand October 31.
How many units of Product XYZ must be produced during October?
A) 1,400
B) 1,500
C) 1,000
D) 2,000

52) BW Department Store expects to generate the following sales for the next three months:

July August September

Expected sales $490,000 $540,000 $580,000

BW's cost of goods sold is 60% of sales dollars. At the end of each month, BW wants a
merchandise inventory balance equal to 25% of the following month's expected cost of goods sold.
What dollar amount of merchandise inventory should BW plan to purchase in August?
A) $330,000
B) $314,600
C) $352,800
D) $327,800

53) Cardle Corporation makes one product. Budgeted unit sales are shown below:

January February March April

Budgeted unit sales 7,300 8,600 10,100 13,600

The ending finished goods inventory should equal 30% of the following month's sales. The
budgeted required production for February is closest to:
A) 11,630 units
B) 14,210 units
C) 9,050 units
D) 8,600 units

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54) Sleeter Corporation makes one product and it provided the following information to help
prepare the master budget for the next four months of operations:

a. Budgeted unit sales for April, May, June, and July are 7,500, 11,900, 10,800, and 14,800 units,
respectively. All sales are on credit.
b. The ending finished goods inventory equals 30% of the following month's sales.
c. The ending raw materials inventory equals 30% of the following month's raw materials
production needs. Each unit of finished goods requires 6 pounds of raw materials. The raw
materials cost $5.00 per pound.

If 72,000 pounds of raw materials are required for production in June, then the budgeted cost of
raw material purchases for May is closest to:
A) $559,230
B) $455,100
C) $350,970
D) $347,100

55) Reaser Corporation makes one product.

April May June July

Budgeted unit sales 8,400 8,700 12,600 13,100

Each unit of finished goods requires 4 pounds of raw materials. The ending finished goods
inventory equals 10% of the following month's sales. The ending raw materials inventory equals
40% of the following month's raw materials production needs. If 50,600 pounds of raw materials
are required for production in June, then the budgeted raw material purchases for May is closest to:
A) 56,600 pounds
B) 42,056 pounds
C) 71,144 pounds
D) 36,360 pounds

56) Bentsen Corporation makes one product.

July August September October

Budgeted unit sales 8,500 9,000 13,900 11,100

The ending finished goods inventory equals 40% of the following month's sales. The ending raw
materials inventory equals 10% of the following month's raw materials production needs. Each
unit of finished goods requires 6 pounds of raw materials. The raw materials cost $2.00 per pound.
If 76,680 pounds of raw materials are required for production in September, then the budgeted cost
of raw material purchases for August is closest to:
A) $133,704
B) $131,520
C) $160,008
D) $146,856

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57) Sill Corporation makes one product. Budgeted unit sales for January, February, March, and
April are 9,900, 11,400, 11,900, and 13,400 units, respectively. The ending finished goods
inventory equals 20% of the following month's sales. The ending raw materials inventory equals
40% of the following month's raw materials production needs. Each unit of finished goods requires
5 pounds of raw materials. If 61,000 pounds of raw materials are required for production in March,
then the budgeted raw material purchases for February is closest to:
A) 58,900 pounds
B) 104,900 pounds
C) 57,500 pounds
D) 81,900 pounds

58) Pabon Corporation makes one product. Budgeted unit sales for August and September are
11,100 and 12,600 units, respectively. The ending finished goods inventory equals 40% of the
following month's sales. The direct labor wage rate is $19.00 per hour. Each unit of finished goods
requires 2.5 direct labor-hours. The estimated direct labor cost for August is closest to:
A) $389,000
B) $555,750
C) $29,250
D) $222,300

59) Dustman Manufacturing Corporation's most recent production budget indicates the following
required production:

January February March April

Required production (units) 4,000 6,000 5,500 5,000

Each unit of finished product requires 3 feet of raw materials. The company maintains raw
materials inventory equal to 2,000 feet plus 10% of the next month's expected production needs.
The raw material used in Dustman Manufacturing Corporation's product costs $4.50 per foot.
What is the value of raw material that Dustman Manufacturing should plan on purchasing for the
month of February?
A) $73,575
B) $74,250
C) $81,000
D) $80,325

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60) The Jung Corporation's production budget calls for the following number of units to be
produced each quarter for next year:

Budgeted production

Quarter 1 45,000 units

Quarter 2 38,000 units
Quarter 3 34,000 units
Quarter 4 48,000 units

Each unit of product requires three pounds of direct material. The company's policy is to begin
each quarter with an inventory of direct materials equal to 30% of that quarter's direct material
requirements. Budgeted direct materials purchases for the third quarter would be:
A) 114,600 pounds
B) 89,400 pounds
C) 38,200 pounds
D) 29,800 pounds

61) The following are budgeted data:

January February March

Sales in units 15,000 20,000 18,000
Production in units 18,000 19,000 16,000

One pound of material is required for each finished unit. The inventory of materials at the end of
each month should equal 20% of the following month's production needs. Purchases of raw
materials for February would be budgeted to be:
A) 19,600 pounds
B) 20,400 pounds
C) 18,400 pounds
D) 18,600 pounds

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Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill
62) The Tobler Corporation has budgeted production for next year as follows:

Quarter
First Second Third Fourth
Production in units 10,000 12,000 16,000 14,000

Four pounds of raw materials are required for each unit produced. Raw materials on hand at the
start of the year total 4,000 pounds. The raw materials inventory at the end of each quarter should
equal 10% of the next quarter's production needs. Budgeted purchases of raw materials in the third
quarter would be:
A) 63,200 pounds
B) 62,400 pounds
C) 56,800 pounds
D) 50,400 pounds

63) Marst Corporation's budgeted production in units and budgeted raw materials purchases over
the next three months are given below:

January February March

Budgeted production (in units) 70,000 ? 80,000
Budgeted raw materials purchases (in pounds) 142,400 151,600 158,800

Two pounds of raw materials are required to produce one unit of product. The company wants raw
materials on hand at the end of each month equal to 30% of the following month's production
needs. The company is expected to have 42,000 pounds of raw materials on hand on January 1.
Budgeted production for February should be:
A) 103,400 units
B) 80,600 units
C) 80,000 units
D) 74,000 units

64) Catano Corporation pays for 40% of its raw materials purchases in the month of purchase and
60% in the following month. If the budgeted cost of raw materials purchases in July is $256,550
and in August is $278,050, then in August the total budgeted cash disbursements for raw materials
purchases is closest to:
A) $265,150
B) $153,930
C) $166,830
D) $111,220

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65) Garry Corporation's most recent production budget indicates the following required
production:

October November December

Required production (units) 210,000 175,000 110,000

Each unit of finished product requires 5 pounds of raw materials. The company maintains raw
materials inventory equal to 25% of the next month's expected production needs. How many
pounds of raw material should Garry plan on purchasing for the month of November?
A) 1,006,250
B) 793,750
C) 1,012,500
D) 893,500

66) Pooler Corporation is working on its direct labor budget for the next two months. Each unit of
output requires 0.15 direct labor-hours. The direct labor rate is $7.00 per direct labor-hour. The
production budget calls for producing 6,500 units in April and 6,200 units in May. The company
guarantees its direct labor workers a 40-hour paid work week. With the number of workers
currently employed, that means that the company is committed to paying its direct labor work
force for at least 1,000 hours in total each month even if there is not enough work to keep them
busy. What would be the total combined direct labor cost for the two months?
A) $13,825.00
B) $13,335.00
C) $14,000.00
D) $13,510.00

67) Tracie Corporation manufactures and sells women's skirts. Each skirt (unit) requires 2.2 yards
of cloth. Selected data from Tracie's master budget for next quarter are shown below:

July August September

Budgeted sales (in units) 7,000 9,000 11,000
Budgeted production (in units) 8,000 10,500 13,000

Each unit requires 0.8 hours of direct labor, and the average hourly cost of Tracie's direct labor is
$18. What is the cost of Tracie Corporation's direct labor in September?
A) $198,000
B) $158,400
C) $187,200
D) $234,000

15
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill
Other documents randomly have
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 LAWSUIT OR LEGACY
Many of the worst features in Life assurance contracts or
policies, mentioned in this essay, have been amended or
corrected since its publication, but there remain enough
other conditions of doubtful fairness to the policy holder
to, I think, justify including this essay in this book.

Among these conditions, is the clause, in all Tontine

policies,—and nearly all policies now issued are Tontine in
one form or another,—which puts all accumulations on
policies derived from "dividends," premiums, etc., on lapsed
policies etc., into the hands of directors or officers of
the companies, to do with as they choose, the policy holder
being made, by the terms of his contract or policy, to agree
to accept whatever proportion of surplus there may be
"apportioned by the Society" or Company, to his policy, when
it shall have matured. That is, the policy holder is not
represented as against the Company, in the determining of
what, if any surplus, his policy is or should be entitled
to. "At the end of the Tontine Period, if the person proposed
for assurance be then living, and the policy in force, the
policy shall participate in the accumulated surplus, derived
from policies on the Free Tontine plan, both existing and
discontinued, as may then be apportioned by the Society."
(Italics mine.) This leaves the policy holder absolutely at
the mercy of the Company, or its actuary who is, or may be,
the instrument of the officers of the Company. And it will
not do to reply that "the policy holders are the Company"
for it is well known, at least among insurance experts, that
this is one of the fictions of the business in its practical
management.

In illustration of certain other abuses in the management of

this beneficent and important business, I have also
included, brief, humorous sketch, which touches some of
these, a propoi of the fictions versus the facts.

Within the past twenty years the business of life-insurance has

grown with such wonderful rapidity, and changed so radically in its
methods and contracts, that it is to-day as unlike its old self as the
railway-car is unlike the stage-coach.
The old life-insurance contract undertook to define burglary, riot,
and rebellion, and the companies held themselves free from
obligations which they had deliberately assumed, if the other party
to the contract did not conform to the rules of conduct laid down
under their definition and requirements. Nowhere else in the history
of large business organizations has the debtor regulated his
obligation by the morals of his creditor and liquidated his debt by
acknowledging its existence, and then simply charging moral
obliquity on the part of said creditor as the reason for not paying it.
If A owes B fifty dollars, and B is known to be a thief or a
murderer, it does not liquidate A's debt to simply show that fact. But
life-insurance companies have held, and some of them still claim, the
right to so indemnify creditors, and, strange to say, they have been
able to conduct business on that basis. They have even gone further,
and said that a debt to B's heirs is forfeited in like manner—thus
making the destruction of a man's reputation after his death of
pecuniary advantage to the company. They have been enabled to do
this because many men do not read the insurance contract which
they sign, and hence have no idea of its complicated and, in many
cases, unfair nature. If men insisted upon understanding the
contract before they sign it, as they do in other business, the more
unfair features would necessarily disappear from all insurance
contracts.
If I deposit a thousand dollars in a bank, it is my money—I can
withdraw it when I please, subject, of course, to business rules,
which have nothing to do with my standing as a citizen. The bank
has nothing to say in regard to my loyalty or my honesty in other
affairs. My money can not revert to the bank on outside ethical or
moral grounds. But in life-insurance—a business in which more
money is invested than in banking—the opposite rule has been, and
to some extent still is, in operation.
There are a few companies, it is true, which have rarely taken
advantage of their reserved right to mulct a family of money actually
received, upon the plea of outside ethical delinquencies of the dead
—which had nothing to do with his length of life—and there are
companies, at the present time, which have voluntarily eliminated
the greater part of these oppressive regulations and reserved rights
from their forms of contract. But in many of the companies they still
remain in full force, and in almost all there are improvements of a
most important nature needed even yet.
In other words, while one or two companies have made their
contracts, in large part, what contracts purport to be, a guarantee of
good faith—that, if so much money is paid to them during a stated
interval, they will return to the party insured, or to his heirs, a stated
sum at a given time—there are still many which have not so
improved their contracts, and are doing business in the old way,
depending for success on the ignorance of their applicants in regard
to the unfair conditions of the contracts which they sign. A few have
left out most of the thousand and one ifs and ands and provideds of
the old regime, and have at last undertaken to conduct this
important and rapidly-growing business on strictly business
principles, and the results have abundantly attested the wisdom of
the new departure and indicate the advisability of still more liberal
measures. A man may now, if he is careful and wise with his choice
of a company, insure his life, or, if insured, he may have the temerity
to die, without a fairly-grounded expectation of leaving his family a
lawsuit for a legacy. He may also be reasonably sure that he is not
placing his own reputation (after he is unable to defend it) at the
mercy of a powerful corporation intent upon saving its funds from
the inroads of a just debt. And I question if it is too much to say
that, given enough money, a strong motive, and a powerful
corporation, on the one hand, and only a sorrowing family upon the
other, and no man ever lived or died whose reputation could not be
blackened beyond repair, after he was himself unable to explain or
refute seeming irregularities of conduct or dishonesty of motive. No
man's character is invulnerable, and no man's reputation can afford
the strain or test of such a contest. Millions of dollars have been
withheld from rightful heirs by threats of an exposure—the more
vague the more frightful—of the unsuspected crimes or misdeeds of
the beloved dead.
Thousands of cases never known to the public have been
"compromised," and hundreds of heartaches and unjust suspicions
and fears about the dead, which can never be corrected, are
aroused in sorrowing but loving breasts by this method of doing
"business." It is, of course, of the utmost importance that every
precaution be taken by life insurance companies to protect against
fraud and trickery, the funds held by them in trust for others. But
with the agent, the examining physician, the medical directors, and
the inspectors all employed by, and answerable to, the company
represented, if fraud is committed in getting into the company, one
or all of these paid officers must, almost of necessity, be party to
that fraud. With all these safeguards in the hands of the company, if
a man is accepted as a "good risk," if he pays his premiums, surely
his family has the right to expect a legacy and not a lawsuit, nor a
"compromise" which must cast reproach on the dead.
If it were not for the enormous value and benefits of this method
of making provision for his family, surely no man in his senses would
ever have risked—would not risk to-day—signing a contract which
gives the other interested party not only an absolute fixed sum of his
money, year by year, but also reserves to it the right to investigate
and construe his actions and motives after he is unable to contest its
verdict.
And not only this, but upon the finding of some slight, wholly
immaterial flaw in his statements (which it failed to find when he
was in the hands of its agents and officers), in some companies he
not only forfeits the right of his heirs to their purchased inheritance,
but the company retains his money which he has paid in besides!
This is surely a dangerous contract for any man to sign. It is placing
a temptation and a power in the hands of a corporation that it has
never yet been in the nature of corporations not to abuse.
"If any statement in this application is in any respect untrue, it
voids the policy, and all payments which shall have been made
revert to the company," gives a wide field and doubtful motive of
action when it is remembered that many of the questions are of
such a nature that not one man in a thousand could be absolutely
sure that he knew the correct reply.
"At what age did your grandparents die?" All four of them. How
many men are sure that they can answer that question correctly?
"Of what did each one die?" You do not know. You have a general
idea. You express it. You pay your premiums ten years. You die (one
doctor says of consumption—another says of blood-poison); the
company finds some old person who says your grandmother on your
father's side died of the same thing, and there is a rumor that along-
forgotten (or never known) country cousin also had it.
The company sends a representative to the widow.. He assures
her (and by the very terms of the contract, signed by the dead
husband, he is right and she is helpless) that they can refuse to pay
a cent; that her husband got his policy by fraud—although no
indication of his physical disorder appeared to any of the numerous
officers employed by the company for its own protection, when he
made his application, and by general reports he was (and believed
himself to be) a sound man.
He assures her that they want to be generous rather than just,
and if she will sign a release, or "compromise," she will be given a
small part of the sum named in the policy. He makes her feel the
necessity of keeping this bargain a secret, lest other policy holders
object to the company paying anything on the life of one who
"attempted a fraud" upon them! He impresses upon her that in case
of contest she could get absolutely nothing; that she is poor, and the
company is rich and strong; and if he fails to arouse her gratitude
for his generosity in offering to pay her anything whatever, he
usually succeeds in intimidating her in her poverty and distress. A
sparrow in the hand is worth more than an eagle on Mount
Washington to a widow with a hungry family, especially if the eagle
has successfully maimed his pursuer in the beginning of the flight.
The company knows this. The widow knows it. The conclusion is
therefore certain before the premises are stated, and the
"compromise" is made or the claim quietly dropped. It is easy to say
that a man died of some bad habit unknown to his family, and his
family would rather forego their claim than drag into light, or into
disgrace, the memory of the loved dead. All this is well understood
by those on the "inside," and by thousands of sad hearts that dare
not speak. Is there no remedy for all this? Is there no way that a
useful and powerful business can be rid of features which make it
both dangerous and ghoulish?
The recent steps taken by the best companies are undoubtedly in
the right direction, as those still using the old forms of contract will
sooner or later learn. But there is room yet for improvement even in
the best forms written to-day. The fairest insurance contract written
still has room for improvement.
Is there no way to protect these great corporations against the
frauds of individuals, and at the same time protect the individual
against the frauds of the corporations?
Must life-insurance contracts be absolutely one-sided, and that be
the side of the strong against the weak; the guarded against the
unguarded; the living against the dead? It seems to me that this is
wholly unnecessary. A life-insurance company which has the agents,
the doctors, the medical directors, and inspectors all on its side can
well afford to offer a fair field—a plain, fair contract—to its patrons
and then pay its debts like any other debtor when its obligation falls
due. If it can not find out within a year (with all the machinery in its
own hands), and while the man is alive, that he is a bad risk, it is
too late to make the discovery after he is dead. If the indications are
sufficiently in his favor for them to accept his money from year to
year while he lives, they are sufficiently favorable to him for his
family to receive the company's money when he has died.
Life-insurance is too valuable and too necessary a means of
provision for the family for it to be overlaid with abuses that make
many men hesitate to avail themselves of its benefits; and which put
a power for evil into strong hands, and make temptation to do
wrong inevitable and constant.
It is said by some, whose attention has been called to this
important subject, that the form of contract does not so much
matter, since almost any court or jury will decide a suit against the
company, and in favor of the family, in any event. This is taking it for
granted that the heirs are in position, and are willing, to bring suit,
and risk the reputation of the dead as well as the financial drain.
But, as a matter of fact, this is not true—nor is it desirable that it
should be. The rights of these corporations should be as jealously
guarded by our courts as the rights of the individual; and perverted
justice is a dangerous tool to handle. The man who signs an
oppressive contract depending upon a court to nullify it after he is
dead, is clinging to a rope of sand. The letter of the bond is what the
court is bound to enforce, and every man should be sure that he
signs only such as shall deal fairly with his heirs on that basis.
The following extract is from the decision of the Court of Appeals
in the famous Dwight case, which is so recently decided as to most
forcibly illustrate this point:
"If an insurance policy in plain and unambiguous language makes
the observance of an apparently immaterial requirement the
condition of a valid contract, neither courts nor juries have the right
to disregard it or to construct, by implication or otherwise, a new
contract in the place of that deliberately made by the parties... Such
contracts are open in construction,... but are subject to it only when,
upon the face of the instrument, it appears that its meaning is
doubtful or its language ambiguous or uncertain.
"An elementary writer says; 'Indeed, the very idea and purpose of
construction imply a previous uncertainty as to the meaning of a
contract, for when this is clear and unambiguous there is no room
for construction and nothing for construction to do.'"
For this reason the Court of Appeals cited as the ground, and the
only ground, for its decision against the widow, the following clause
from the policy of the contesting company:
"This policy is issued, and the same is accepted by the said
assured, upon the following express conditions and agreements:
That the same shall cease and be null and void and of no effect... if
the representations made in the application for this policy, upon the
faith of which this contract is made, shall be found in any respect
untrue."
Colonel Dwight was in the habit of making large business
ventures. Several times, when he had done so, he had taken heavy
amounts of life-insurance, so that in case of the failure of his
undertakings, and his own death before he could regain his financial
feet, his family would not suffer. On previous occasions he had
dropped the greater part of his insurance as soon as his business
ventures had terminated successfully. This is not an uncommon
thing for rich or speculative men to do.
In 1878 Colonel Dwight died, with an insurance on his life of about
$265,000, some of which he had carried for years; but a large part
of it had been recently taken for the reasons above stated, and as
he had done before under similar circumstances. Fifty thousand of
this sum was in old and new policies against one company.
This company paid at once, thus giving the widow means to fight
for her claims against the other companies. In a short time one of
the other companies, against which she had a small claim of $5,000,
also paid. The other nineteen companies contested. The widow
employed Senator Conkling, and the fight has been the hardest, the
bitterest, and the most ghoulish insurance contest ever had in this
country; and finally the companies have won in the Court of Appeals
on a purely technical point, after having dug Colonel Dwight's body
up several times, in the effort to prove that he was poisoned, that he
hung himself, and that he was not dead at all! They failed utterly to
prove any material cause of contest; but they finally won on the
ground that, in answering a question in the application for insurance,
Colonel Dwight did not state that he had ever engaged in the liquor
business, whereas it had been known that he had owned a hotel
where liquor was sold.
Now, when it is remembered that at one time these companies
tried to prove that Colonel Dwight had committed suicide, but that
they never had any grounds upon which to claim that he had died of
intemperance, the purely technical grounds for the decision of the
Court of Appeals is apparent. Ninety-nine policies out of a hundred
could be contested on such ground as that; and so long as insurance
contracts retain these unreasonable and oppressive features, no
man can be sure that he is not leaving a lawsuit and bitter sorrow to
his family, and, worst of all, a blasted reputation for himself, when
he applies for insurance under such a form.
An officer of one of the companies was heard to boast of the fact,
but a few days ago, that his company had spent nearly ten times the
amount of the claim against it in this Dwight contest! This is
economy indeed! Whose money was this spent? The policy-holder's.
For what? To defeat one of the policy-holders in a contest for a claim
no doubt as honest as any one of the others will present in his turn.
But suppose that this was not an honest claim; suppose that
Colonel Dwight was not a "good risk," is it not a rather suggestive
indication of the value of the medical examinations by the expert
medical examiners and directors of twenty-one life-insurance
companies? A risk good enough to "pass" some forty-five doctors
employed by, and for the protection of, the companies is, on the face
of it, a good enough risk to pay. If this is not so, then the
companies, and not the public, should be made to bear the
responsibility of the incompetency of their own officers.
But for the reputation of these medical men, it is a fortunate fact
that the contest did not prove Colonel Dwight to be an unsafe risk.
After his body was dug up several times, and a number of autopsies
held, and most of him analyzed, they succeeded in proving that he
owned a hotel where liquor was sold!
But under these forms of contract, the companies undoubtedly
had a legal right to refuse payment upon even so absurdly technical
a misstatement of "occupation." It was claimed by his family that his
hotel was a side issue; that he did not think of himself as in that
business, and that his failure to say, because of it, that he was "in
any way connected with the manufacture or sale of spirituous
liquors," was a natural one under the circumstances. How many men
give, in answering the question as to occupation in their applications
for insurance, all of the numerous "plants" in which they have an
interest of a financial nature, more or less important? One man says
he is a bookkeeper, but he may possibly, also, own stock in a mine.
His claim could be contested on that ground. Suppose that he really
thought nothing of his mining-stock when he made his application
and signed his contract? Suppose that in a short time he was called
to see the mine, went into it, and died of the results of that trip? His
policy would not, if it contained the usual conditions, be worth, in a
legal fight, the paper it was written on.
That companies often waive their reserved right to contest on
such grounds, is used as an argument to prove the innocent nature
of these forfeiture clauses and other oppressive conditions. But so
long as they hold the legal power to do so, the temptation to contest
will be too great for flesh and blood, not to say for corporations, to
bear without yielding sometimes. The "Get thee behind me, Satan,"
of a fair, plain contract will be the best safeguard for the heirs in the
matter of money, and for the companies in the matter of morals;
while the "economy for the sake of surviving policy-holders" might
be directed, as there is surely room for believing that it needs to be,
into other and more legitimate channels. Economizing on debts to
dead policy-holders is not a very good recommendation to living
ones, for the companies which thus lock the wrong stable-door.
The new move toward furnishing fair contracts is in the right
direction, and it now rests with insurers—the public—to see that it
does not stop short of fulfilling the promise of still better things in
the future.
 POINTS HUMOROUS AND
OTHERWISE ABOUT LIFE
INSURANCE.
Printed in Twentieth Century.
I made up my mind to get my life insured. As i had heard some
one say it was not wise to put all of one's eggs into the same
basket, I decided to apply for a small policy in two of the leading
companies at the same time. I was never seriously ill in my life, so
when I was informed that I had been "held off" by the examining
physician of one company who found theoretical traces of diseased
kidneys, I was a good deal astonished. Professional etiquette
prevented the examining physician of the other company from
passing me until this matter was settled, although he confessed that
he could find no such traces himself. In his opinion my weak spot
was my lungs. "But doctor," said I, "I've got lungs like a bellows. I
was stroke oar at college."
"It doesn't make any difference to our doctor whether you were
stroke oar or a stroke of lightning if he discovers that any of your
ancestors died of consumption," remarked the agent, who had lost
his temper. "You ought to have had better sense than to tell Dr.
Pulmonary that your great aunt coughed before she died. He'd find
evidence of lung trouble in a copper-bottomed boiler if it wheezed
letting off steam. Who examined you over at the other place? Old
Albumen? I'll bet ten dollars he'd find traces of his pet disorder in a
ham if he examined one."
I was getting a little piqued. I concluded to put my application in
to several other companies and take the first policy issued. In
pursuance of this idea I was examined by Dr. Palpitation of the M. of
N. Y. company, and he discovered that I was liable to drop off at any
time from heart failure. He said that he did not wish to alarm me,
but I needed medical care and a very wise and sustained course of
treatment.
At this stage of the proceedings I went to the only physician I had
ever employed for any slight ills during my past career and had him
put me through a thorough and exhaustive physical examination
without disclosing anything of my motive for so doing. He
pronounced me fit for the coming boat race, which was to be an
unusually trying one.
"Any trace of albumen, doctor?" I asked.
"None—not a trace."
"Nothing wrong with my heart or lungs?"
"Look here, boy. If you never die until they give out, you're going
under from old age. I tell you, you are as sound a man as ever lived.
There is absolutely nothing to hang a suspicion of any disorder on.
For my sake I wish there was," he added, laughing and slapping his
pocket.
The next day I had a call from the doctor who had examined me
for the E. of Y. He said that he'd like to have a second pass at my
eyes. He thought there was a look in one of them that indicated
softening of the brain. I laughed.
He remarked that people in the first stages of that trouble usually
took it just that way. It was a symptom.
"You confounded old fool!" said I, losing my temper. "Are you in
earnest? I supposed you were joking from the first but if you're
talking as good sense as you've got just leave this office. I—"
He left.
He reported to his company that I was in a more advanced stage
of the disorder than he had at first feared. I had arrived at the
unnecessarily irritable condition. Of course my case was settled with
that company. Professional etiquette again stepped in, and the
doctor for the M. B. of C. took another whack at my liver. He said
that the organ was badly enlarged and he'd hold me off for one year
to see if it would return to its normal proportions. According to his
diagnosis fully nine-tenths of the population of New York were
carrying around livers that were enough to tire out an ox. He could
tell a big livered man as far as he could see him, and he pointed out
five who passed while he was talking.
He said that enlargment of the liver was getting to be a very real
danger to the population of all of the chief cities, and if the cause
was not soon discovered by the medical profession and a reducing
process, so to speak, clapped on to the metropolitan liver, life
insurance companies would have to keep a mighty sharp eye on all
applicants, or the death rates would wreck the most prosperous of
them in pretty short order.
I was led to infer from the way he poked and prodded around me
and measured and sounded that my liver was rather badly sagged at
one side and that the other lobe was swelled up like a bladder. It
seems as if a person would notice a thing like that himself, but the
doctor said that as like as not I'd never have discovered it at all if he
had not—fortunately for me—been called in to examine me.
He said that he never prescribed for men, he is required to
examine for insurance, but he told me to take a certain remedy for
the next three months and then report to him. Meantime his
company would "hold me off."
"We won't reject you outright," he explained "because this thing
may be only temporary—may not be organic—and it wouldn't be a
fair thing to your heirs to decline you outright, because that would
most likely prevent you from ever getting life insurance anywhere in
the future."
That was a new idea to me and gave me a good deal of a scare.
It occurred to me that the future of a man's family—where it
depended on the insurance money of its head—was subject to
considerable uncertainty from the various fads of the doctors.
Here I was in danger of being rejected—pronounced an unsound
risk—by four separate and distinct companies for four separate and
distinct ailments of which my own doctor could find not the least
trace and I could feel not the faintest twinge.
If any one of them decided positively against me the future of my
family was nil—so far as insurance went, for the examining physician
of no other company would be bold enough or sufficiently lacking in
"professional courtesy" to pronounce in my favor, whether he could
find anything wrong with me himself or not. I began to realize that
what I had so far looked upon as rather a good joke might be
serious after all.
It occurred to me, too, that it would be a good deal more far
reaching than I had supposed.
If Old Pulmonary—as the agent called him—stuck to his theory of
my lungs, not only I, but my children, would be unable to get
insurance. It would establish a family history—a "heredity"—hard to
get rid of. My little joke in speaking of the fact that my aunt had
been said to cough before she died, together with Dr. Pulmonary's
ability to scent lung trouble in the breathing apparatus of a porous
plaster, might lead to a serious complication not only for me but for
my children. I concluded to make a clean breast of it. I did not quite
dare tell Dr. Pulmonary that I had been deliberately guying the
profession—and in fact that was not my first intention—but I asked if
he did not think it a little odd that no two of them had held me off
for the same reason and that each one had found indications of the
particular disorder for which he had a special leaning. He pricked up
his ears at once and asked all about the others. I told him that one
had found albumen, another enlarged liver, and the third was afraid
of heart failure or softening of the brain, and one was still waiting,
because he could find no trouble—on account of professional
etiquette—before reporting at all.
"Meantime my own doctor—the one who has known me from
childhood—pronounces me fit for a scull race," said I a little drily.
"Does your physician know of these examinations?*' he inquired.
"No, he doesn't," I responded rather hotly this time, "or no doubt
he'd have discovered that I had inflammatory rheumatism and
gangrene. He is a good deal of a professional ethic man, himself."
The doctor turned and walked into his private room, promising to
overhaul the papers again and talk with his subordinate.
I hunted up the agent who had first called upon me and
complained that this sort of nonsense had gone about as far as I
wanted it to go. "That old donkey at the head of your medical
department upholds the idiotic report of the young gosling that first
examined me here, notwithstanding the fact that he says himself
that he can't find the first trace of the trouble. Now, if insurance
companies employ impecunious young physicians with little
experience, because they can get them cheap, and then insist upon
it that professional etiquette forbids any other examiner from
correcting their blunders, it seems to me—"
The agent had been looking about carefully to be sure that no one
overheard.
At this point he said:
"Sh! Don't talk so loud. You see young Cardiac, who had you first,
passed a man a short while ago who died in about six months and it
was discovered that he had only a part of one lung and had been
that way for years. The referee—Old Pulmonary is our referee, you
know—gave him a pretty bad scare, and he's afraid to pass anybody
at all since. 'Fraid he'll lose his place. All the agents are mad about
it. Manage to hold their men over for examination until he leaves the
office and then take 'em to another one of the examiners. He'll
refuse every body now for a while—or hold him off. Fully one-half
the men he examined last month were rejected outright or held over.
I didn't know it when I took you to him or I'd have taken you to
some one else to be examined."
"That would be all very well," said I, "if it wasn't for the absurdity
of what the doctors are pleased to call professional etiquette, which
prevents any other examiner for any other company from finding a
man so held or rejected, sound. In the first place nearly all the big
companies refuse to allow any but an 'old school' or 'regular'
allopathic physician to examine a man. Then if that examiner has a
fad, or makes a mistake, they are all banded together to sustain him
in it and not to correct it, even if they can't find the first symptom of
a disease about him. I tell you it is not only outrageous to the man
and his family, but the result will be that men who know it will refuse
to place themselves in any such danger. They won't want a family
record of hereditary diseases made and put on file to stare them and
their descendants in the face just for the sake of professional
etiquette toward some young M. D., who just as like as not got his
place from the fact that he married a daughter of a director of the
company and had to be supported some way and hadn't the skill to
do it in an open field in his profession. Men are not going to stand it.
It will injure them, and it is bound to react on the company too. I'd
never have applied at all if I'd known of it in time. What business
has a company to ask whether an applicant has or has not been
rejected by another company? If their own examiner can't find
anything wrong with him, isn't that enough? This thing of the
doctors of all the companies combining to keep a record against a
man is outrageous. Why can't a company depend on the capacity of
its own medical staff? If it wants any other information of a medical
nature, why isn't the applicant's own family physician quite enough?
I consider the thing a good deal of an outrage, and the company
that omits from its papers the sort of questions that result in this
absurd and oppressive professional etiquette folderol, is going to be
the company of the future. Intelligent men know too well the chaotic
state of medical science to be willing to risk it. Why, good Lord, man,
that softening of the brain—paresis—idiot over at the £. of Y. can,
and no doubt will, give me a record that may cling to me and my
family in a way that might, in many a business or other contingency,
cause the very greatest hardship." I looked up and saw that the
medical referee who had really indicated that he meant to reconsider
my case was standing where he had heard me.
His face was a study* He was angry clear through. He would have
(in a medical journal or debate) taken issue with, and proved the
utter incapacity of nine-tenths of the profession, but to have a
layman criticise their action when it might mean even life or death to
him and his was more than the doctor's adherence to professional
etiquette could bear.

* My friend, the agent, saw his face.

"I'll bet you four dollars, John, that you not only won't get a policy
here now but that no other company will pass you," said he under
his breath. "The old man is on the war path."
That was eight months ago and I'm "held off" in eleven companies
now. I was never sick in my life. I'm as sound in person and in
heredity as any man who ever lived, but I am at the mercy of that
absurdest of all covers for personal incapacity—professional etiquette
—combined with the unreasonable fact that insurance companies
require an applicant to tell their examiners just what piece of idiotic
prejudice has been launched at him by the doctor of every other
company, so that they can all hold together and fit his case to the
reports, and not the reports to the facts in his case as they find
them.
Meantime, Jack Howard, who died last week, poor fellow, was
accepted by five of them because the first examiner who got hold of
him, not being a kidney fiend but having his whole mind on lung
trouble—and Jack had splendid lungs—didn't discover that he was in
the last stages of Bright's disease. His family made $27,000 out of
professional etiquette, and mine—when I die—will most likely lose
that much, together with a reputation for a sound heredity which
may affect the insurers to the third and fourth generation of them
that love truth and tell that their father was rejected by all the
leading life insurance companies for pulmonary trouble, heart
disease, kidney affection, paresis, and enlargement of the liver.
Meantime the first good company that shows enough sense and
sufficient confidence in its own medical men to omit that sort of
questions from its form of examination is going to get me—and a
good many others like me.
 COMMON SENSE IN SURGERY
There are certain forms of expression which once heard fit
themselves into the mind so firmly, and re-appear in one connection
or another so frequently, that one scarcely recognizes the fact even
when one changes a word or two in order to make the original idea
fit the case in point. So when I stood watching the ingenious method
by which the trainers of the English fox-hounds induced each dog to
perform his own surgical operations after a hunt, I remarked, with
no recognition of the plagiarism from Dr. Holmes, "Every dog his
own doctor."
"No," replied the trainer, with a fine sense of distinction which I
had not before observed—"no; I am the doctor; the dogs are the
surgeons. I prescribe; they perform the operation. They do that part
far better than I could; but they wouldn't do it in time to save the
pain and trouble of a much more serious operation that they could
not perform, if I did not set them at it in time, and keep them at
work until all danger of inflammation is past."
It was after a hunt. The dogs—splendid blooded fellows, a great
pack of over sixty of them—had gotten many thorns and briers in
their feet. They came back limping, foot-sore, and with troubled
eyes that looked up piteously for relief from their pain. They were
very hungry too, after the long chase; but "No doctor will allow a
patient to eat just before a surgical operation," remarked the trainer,
dryly. "Now watch."
He threw open a door leading into an outer room of the splendid
Hunt Club Kennel, and gave the word of command.
There was a rush, and the entire pack burst through the wide
entrance. Then every dog lay suddenly down, and began with great
vigor to lick his feet.
 Why? Simply because in rushing through that door they had
waded through a wide, shallow trough or sink of pretty warm soup.
This basin was sunk in the stone floor, and reached entirely across
the door, and was too wide to jump over, even had it been visible
from the outside, which it was not.
The dogs had plunged into it before they knew it was there, and
were instantly out of its rather uncomfortable heat.
Each dog worked at his feet with vigor. He was hungry. The soup
was good; but dogs object to soup on their feet. This process was
continued and repeated until it was thought that all thorns and
briers and pebbles had been licked and picked from the crippled
feet. Then the dogs were fed and put to bed—or allowed to lie down
and sleep—in their fresh straw-filled bunks.
"A doctor and a surgeon may be the same person," remarked the
philosophical trainer, oracularly, "but they seldom are. If you whine—
as the dogs do when their feet hurt after a hunt—or if you limp or
complain, a doctor guesses what is the matter with you. Then he
guesses what will cure you. If both guesses are right, you are in
luck, and he is a skilful diagnostician. In nine cases out of ten he is
giving you something harmless, while he is taking a second and a
third look at you (at your expense, of course) to guess over after
himself."
His medical pessimism and his surgical optimism amused and
entertained me, and I encouraged him to go on.
"Now with a surgeon it is different. Surgery is an exact science.
Before I took this position I was a surgeon's assistant in a hospital.
In some places we are called trained nurses. In our place we were
called surgeons' assistants. That's why I make such a distinction
between doctors and surgeons. I've seen the two work side by side
so long. I've seen some of the funniest mistakes made, and I've
seen mistakes that were not funny. I've seen post-mortem
examinations that would have made a surgeon ashamed that he had
ever been born, looked upon by the doctor who treated the case as
not at all strange; didn't stagger him a bit in his own opinion of
himself and his scientific knowledge next time. I remember one
case. It was a Japanese boy. He was as solid as a little ox, but he
told Dr. G——— that he'd been taking a homoeopathic prescription
for a cold. That was enough for Dr. G———. A red rag in the van of
a bovine animal is nothing to the word 'homoeopathy' to Dr. G———.
Hydropathy gives him fits, and eclecticism almost, lays him out. Not
long ago he sat on a jury which sent to prison a man who had failed
in a case of 'mind cure.' That gave deep delight to his 'regular' soul.
Well, Dr. G——— questioned the little Jap, who could not speak good
English, and had the national inclination to agree with whatever you
say. Ever been in Japan? No? Well, they are a droll lot. Always strive
to agree with all you say or suggest.
"'Did you ever spit blood?' asked Dr. G———, by-and-by, after he
could find nothing else wrong except the little cold for which the
homoeopathic physician was treating the boy.
"'Once,' replied that youthful victim.
"'Aha! we are getting at the root of this matter now,' said Dr. G
———. 'Now tell me truly. Be careful! Did you spit much blood?'
"'Yes, sir; a good deal.'
"The doctor sniffed. He always knew that a homoeopathic humbug
could not diagnose a case, and would be likely to get just about as
near the facts as a light cold would come to tuberculosis.
"'How long did this last?' he inquired of the smiling boy.
"'I think—it seems to me—
"'A half-hour?' queried the doctor; 'twenty minutes?'
"'I think so. Yes, sir. About half an hour—twenty minutes,'
responded the obliging youth.
"I heard that talk. Common-sense told me the boy's lungs were all
right; but it was none of my business, and so I watched him treated,
off and on, for lung trouble for over a month before I got a chance
to ask him any questions. Then I asked, incidentally:
"'What made you spit that blood that time, Gihi?' "'I didn't know I
ought to swallow him,' he replied, wide-eyed and anxious. 'Dentist
pull tooth He say to me, "Spit blood here." I do like he tell me. Your
doctor say ver' bad for lungs, spit blood. Next time I swallow him.'
"I helped another practitioner, in good and regular standing, to
examine a man's heart. He found a pretty bad wheeze in the left
side. I had to nurse that man. He had been on a bat, and all on
earth that ailed him was that spree, but he got treated for heart
trouble. It scared the man almost to death.
"I'd learned how a heart should sound, so one day I tried his. He
was in bed then, and it sounded all right, so when the doctor came
in, I took him aside, and told him that I didn't want to interfere, but
that man was scared about to death over his heart, and it seemed to
me it was all right—sounded like other hearts—and his pulse was all
right too. The doctor was mad as a March h*are, though he had told
me to make two or three tests, and keep the record for him against
the time of his next visit. Well, to make a long matter short, the final
discovery was—the man don't know it yet, and he is going around in
dread of dropping off any minute with heart failure—that at the first
examination the man had removed only his coat and vest, and his
new suspender on his starched shirt had made the squeak. That is a
cold fact, and that man paid over eighty dollars for the treatment he
had for his heart, or rather, for his suspender."
I was so interested in the drollery of this ex-nurse, and in his
scorn for one branch of a profession, while he entertained almost a
superstitious awe and admiration for surgery per se, that I decided
upon my return to New York to visit a great surgeon, and ask him to
allow me to see an operation that would fairly represent the
advance-guard so to speak, the upward reach of the profession as it
is to day.
We all know the physician who follows his profession strictly and
solely as a means of support. Most of us also happily know
something of one or more medical men who are a credit to
humanity, in that they subordinate their ability to extort money from
suffering to their desire to relieve pain, even though such relief
conduces not to their own financial opulence. Very few of us who are
not close students of the medical profession realize, I think, some of
the magnificent developments not only of surgery, but of the
character of the surgeon. We are led to think of them as rather hard
and brutal men. The side of their work and nature that means
tenderness and devotion to the relief of those who, but for the
skilled and brave surgeon, must die or suffer for life, is seldom laid
before us. The quiet, sweet, and simple devotion of such men does
not reach the public ear.
The operation of which I learned, and which is the first of its kind
on record, was so strange, so great, and so far-reaching in its
suggestion and promise that it seemed to me it could not fail to
interest and inspire the general reader, who never sees a medical or
surgical journal, and who would not read it if he did.
Can you think of an operation that would create a mind? Can you
conceive of the meaning to humanity of a discovery that would
transform a congenital imbecile into a rational being? Such an
operation was the one I was privileged to see.
The patient was a child about one year old, of good parentage
and of healthy bodily growth, aside from the fact that its skull was
that of a new-born child, and it had hardened and solidified into that
shape and size. The "soft spot" was not there, and the sutures or
seams of the skull had grown fast and solid, so that the brain within
was cramped and compressed by its unyielding bony covering.
The body could grow—did grow—but the poor little compressed
brain, the director of the intelligent and voluntary actions of the
body, was kept at its first estate. Even worse than this, its struggle
with its bony cage made a pressure which caused distortion and
aimless or unmeaning movement—the arm and leg turned in, in that
helpless, pathetic way that tells of imbecility. In short, the baby was
a physically healthy imbecile—the most pathetic object on this sad
earth. Upon examination, the surgeon, a gentle, sweet-natured man,
whose enthusiasm for his profession—for the relief of suffering—
makes him the object of devotion of many to whom he has given life
and health, and the inspirer and final appeal for many a brother
practitioner, discovered what he believed to be the trouble. Led by
that most uncommon of all things, common sense, he believed that
this little victim of nature's mistake might be changed from a
condition far worse than death to one of comfort for itself, and to
those who now looked upon it only in anguish of soul.
After explaining to the parents and the surgeons who had come to
witness the wonderful experiment (for, after all, at this stage it was
but an experiment based upon common-sense) that it might fail;
after a modest and simple statement of his reason for undertaking
so dangerous an operation, with no precedent before him; after
explaining that the parents fully understood that not to try it meant
hopeless idiocy, and that the trial might mean death—he began the
work. I shall try to tell what it was in language that is not scientific,
and may seem to those accustomed to surgical terms inadequate
and unlearned; but to those who are not technical medical students
I believe the less technical language will be far clearer.
The child's skull was laid bare in front. Two tracks were cut from a
little above the base (or top) of the nose up and over to the back of
the head. One of these tracks was cut on each side, the surgeon
explained, because it would give equal expansion to the two sides of
the brain, and because it would cause death to cut through the
middle of the top of the head, where lies "the superior longitudinal
sinus." He left, therefore, the solid track of bone through the middle,
and cut two grooves or tracks through the bone, one on either side,
where nature (when she does not make a mistake) leaves soft or
yielding edges, by means of which the normal skull expands to fit
the needs of the brain within.
The trench made displaced, or cut away, one-quarter of an inch of
solid bone all the way from near the base of the nose to the back
part of the head. In the middle of the top of the head on each side a
cross-wise cut was made, and one inch of bone divided. Another cut
was made on either side, slanting toward the ears. This was one
inch and a half long. The surgeon then tenderly inserted his
forefinger, pressed the internal mass loose from the bones where it
adhered, and pushed the bones wider apart. This process widened
the trenches to one inch.
 The wound was now dressed with the wonderfully effective new
aseptics, and the flesh and skin closed over. The operation had taken
an hour and a half. There was little bleeding. The baby was, of
course, unconscious during the entire time. Oh, the blessings of
anaesthetics! And now comes the wonderful result of this bold and
radical but tender and humane operation.
The baby rallied well. In three days it showed improved
intelligence. In eight days this improvement was marked. From a
creature that sat listless, deformed, and unmindful of all about it, it
began to "take notice," like other children. From an "it," it had been
transformed into a "he." It had been given personality. It ate and
slept fairly well.
On the tenth day the wound was exposed and dressed. It had
healed, or "united by first intention," as the doctors say; and again
one can but exclaim, "Oh, those wonderful aseptic dressings!" It had
united without suppuration. It was a clean wound, cleanly healing.
One month after the operation the feet and hands had
straightened out, and lost their jerky, aimless movements. The child
is now a child. It acts and thinks like other children, laughs and
cooes and makes glad the hearts of those who love it.
Not like other children of its age, perhaps, for it has several
months yet to "catch up," but the last report, in one of the leading
medical journals, said:
"One month after the operation the change in its condition was
surprising and gratifying. The deformities in the extremities had
entirely disappeared, and there was evidently a remarkable increase
in intelligence. It noticed those about it, took hold of objects offered
it, laughed, and behaved much as children of ordinary development
at six or eight months. The pupils were no longer widely dilated, but
appeared normal. It eats and sleeps well, and is in general greatly
improved as a result of the operation."
If in one month the little imprisoned brain was able to "catch up"
six or eight months, we may surely believe that the remaining four
or five months which it lost, because nature sealed the little
thinking-machine firmly in too small a casket, will be wiped away
also, and the little victim of nature's mistake be given full and normal
opportunity through the skill and genius of man.*

*It has now been several years since the operation, and the
child is like other children.—H. H. G.

Is not that common-sense in surgery?

Could anything be more wonderful? Could any operation open to

the future of the race wider possibilities and offer more brilliant
hope? I may quote here farther from the same medical journal the
report of Dr. Wyeth, himself:
"The operation differs from any yet done. Lanne-longue, Keen,
and others cut a trench about a quarter of an inch in width, and on
one side, at a single operation. It seemed to me if the brain was
penned in by premature ossification of the cranial bones, these
should be torn loose and permanently lifted, thus allowing a
thorough expansion. Should only temporary benefit be secured, the
operation should be repeated. Experience alone can demonstrate
whether the expansion of the brain will be able to spread the cranial
bones to such an extent that it may reach even an ordinary
development. The condition of these patients is so hopeless and
deplorable that, in my opinion, very great risk is justifiable in any
surgical interference which offers even a hope of amelioration."
Thus the race is quietly achieving mastery over the blind forces of
nature, and the steady hand of science, coupled with tenderness
and sincerity, is pushing back some of the worst horrors of life, and
throwing a flood of light and hope into the future! It makes one's
step lighter and one's face happier only to think of these marvellous
achievements and victories. A new impulse of hope and happiness
dawns upon life. I owed this new inspiration to my pessimistic
acquaintance—he of the Hunt Club Kennel—and the introduction he
gave me to the rudiments of applied surgery. It was indeed a long
sweep from the one operation to the other.
My first and second glimpses of the operating-room were surely
the two extremes, and yet when I suggested this to Dr. Wyeth, the
great and gentle surgeon who performed this operation, he smilingly
replied that, after all; either or both—indeed, all of it—was simply
common-sense in surgery.
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