Mineral wealth and medical opportunity

With the increase in population and in colonial revenues after the discovery of diamonds and gold in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, public and private hospitals proliferated, particularly in larger centres such as Cape Town. The numbers of practitioners engaged in public health also increased. Perhaps as important, doctors were now accepted as skilled professionals and remunerated accordingly. At the same time there was also a greater demand for doctors in the employment of business and industry, particularly the insurance industry and the railways. These opportunities for salaried employment somewhat reduced doctors' professional autonomy and occasionally encouraged intra-professional squabbles. Yet they also provided a springboard for general professional regulation, growing professional status in specialisms like psychiatry, and a solid base for the economic survival of country doctors.