PART 4
IV. This piece of advice also will need our consideration,
as it contributes somewhat to the whole.
For should you begin by discussing fees, you will
suggest to the patient either that you will go away
and leave him if no agreement be reached, or that
you will neglect him and not prescribe any immediate
treatment. So one must not be anxious about fixing
a fee. For I consider such a worry to be harmful
to a troubled patient, particularly if the disease be
acute. For the quickness of the disease, offering no
opportunity for turning back,
1 spurs on the good
physician not to seek his profit but rather to lay
hold on reputation. Therefore it is better to reproach
a patient you have saved than to extort money from
2
those who are at death's door.
