Explore "Dr. Siegfried Iseman" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I said when they handed me my diploma, / I said to myself I will be good / And wise and brave and helpful to others;
I said I will carry the Christian creed / Into the practice of medicine!
Somehow the world and the other doctors / Know what's in your heart as soon as you make / This high-souled resolution.
And the way of it is they starve you out.
And no one comes to you but the poor.
And you find too late that being a doctor / Is just a way of making a living.
And when you are poor and have to carry / The Christian creed and wife and children / All on your back, it is too much!
That's why I made the Elixir of Youth, / Which landed me in the jail at Peoria / Branded a swindler and a crook / By the upright Federal Judge!