Badgered Doctors

The "badger game" is so old a criminal trick that dictionaries describe it. A dishonest woman lures a lickerish man into her apartment. Suddenly appears the '"husband," who for cash will overlook his "wife's" indiscretion. Occasionally such blackmail is worked by low men upon rich women. Rarely have the victims sufficient hardihood to resist the imposition.*

Last week the Medical Society of the State of New York warned the profession against a peculiarly malicious application of the badger game. A "sick" woman telephones for a doctor to come to her hotel room. While he is giving her a physical examination, which perhaps requires him to remove his coat and roll up his sleeves, in dashes the outraged "husband." The Society advises doctors either to refuse to visit unknown female clients, or to take along a witness; if no one else, the hotel clerk.

*The use of badger in this sense derives, not from the old English pastime of baiting badgers but, according to Webster, from the nickname for natives of Wisconsin, "The Badger State," who once enjoyed a reputation for cheating, trickery.

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