Doctors by Rudyard Kipling

GENTLEMEN,

It may not have escaped your professional observation that there are only two classes of mankind in the world -- doctors and patients. I have some delicacy in confessing that I belong to the patient class -- ever since a doctor told me that all patients were phenomenal liars where their own symptoms were concerned. If I dared to take advantage of this magnificent opportunity which now lies before me, I should like to talk to you all about my symptoms. However, I have been ordered -- on medical advice -- not to talk about patients, but doctors. Speaking then, as a patient, I should say that the average patient looks upon the average doctor very much as the non-combatant looks upon the troops fighting on his behalf. The more trained men there are between his dearly beloved body and the enemy, he thinks, the better.