A firm believer in professional responsibility, Furnell was in deep water from the first day he took over as sanitary commissioner of Madras and its 30 million inhabitants in May 1880.
Medicine is a service industry, the product of which is health care, and its practitioners deserve remuneration. But to some, the notion of medicine as a road to personal wealth is an example of free-market economics gone awry.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):780-786. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.msoc1-1508.