WHY BE A DOCTOR

Why do men and women become doctors? Out of love for their fellow humans? For the fascination of medical science? To turn a respectable fast buck? Most doctors are hard put to diagnose their own professional motives. In a collection of essays and excerpts, Dr. Noah D. Fabricant, himself a noted Chicago ear, nose and throat specialist, lets 50 of the world's best-known doctors and ex-doctors explain Why We Became Doctors (Grune & Stratton; $3.75). The medical men who are most articulate about their choice generally have achieved equal or greater fame as writers. Among the contributions:

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Sometime London medical student who wrote his experiences into his semi -autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage (1915):

THE medical profession did not interest me ... but it gave me a chance of living in London and so gaining the experience of life that I hankered after ... I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain ... I saw the dark lines that despair drew on a face ... I do not know a better training for a writer than to spend some years in the medical profession ..."

HAVELOCK

ELLIS

(1359-1939)

Pioneer student of human sexuality:

FIRST profession I ever thought of entering [at 15] was ... the Church. [Later] I wanted to be a doctor [only] because I needed a doctor's education . . . Otherwise I could never have gained a confident grasp of the problem of sex ... I should have dropped and left no mark ..."

ALBERT SCHWEITZER

Winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, who dropped a career in theology to become a medical missionary in French Equatorial Africa:

IT struck me as incomprehensible that I should be allowed to lead such a happy life when I saw so many people around me wrestling with care . . . I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk . . . This new form of activity I could not represent as talking about the religion of love, but only as putting it into practice . . ."

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-94) Doctor and author (Autocrat of the Breakfast Table): 1KNOW I might have made an indifferent lawyer--and I think I may make a tolerable physician--I did not like the one, and I do like the other ... If you would wax thin and savage, like a half-starved spider--be a lawyer; if you would go off like an opium eater in love with your starry delusions--be a doctor." A. J. CRONIN

Scottish-born London doctor turned bestselling novelist, who caustically described the medical profession (The Citadel, Adventures in Two Worlds):

I'VE always had this queer urge to be a writer [but] I had to do something sensible . . . That's why I went in for medicine. It was safe and practical."

SIR WILFRED T.

GRENFELL

(1865-1940)

British medical missionary:

I . . . discussed the matter with our country family doctor. [When] he produced a pickled human brain, I was thrilled ... It attracted me as did the gramophone, the camera, the automobile."

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