ABSTRACT
In general, the doctor is perceived to be obsessed with his payment, which is also seen as a poisonous element in his relationship with his patients. The earliest recorded decrees concerning doctors are not devoted to codes of behavior or physicians’ training, but almost in their entirety, to a regulation of medical fees. The theme of the money-hungry doctor is repeated many times during the subsequent millennia. The Doctor of Physic in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, although portrayed with a great deal of sympathy, is made to discuss his remuneration at a most inappropriate moment. As a physician, this man displays considerable clinical skills. Several stories describe physicians who have become so greedy, that they resort to fraudulent or unethical practices so as to augment their incomes. It is evidently considered inappropriate for the physician who is perceived to function as a hybrid between a Good Samaritan and a Faustian seeker of knowledge.
