The duties of Boards of Health may be either advisory, or executive, or both. The duties of this Association, in its character of State Board of Health, are of necessity, for the present, chiefly of an advisory kind. They will become executive also in due time, namely, when an increasing population shall demand, and increasing prosperity shall warrant the State to attempt more energetic supervision of the public health than is now possible. In the meantime, we must proceed wisely and prudently. Even the members of the Medical Profession have as yet a very inadequate appreciation of the ends and aims, and especially of the actual resources of sanitary science. Not much knowledge, then, of this sort is to be expected of members of the General Assembly and of the general public. Hence it results that wise sanitary legislation is difficult to obtain; and that appropriations for sanitary purposes are made for the most part with hesitation and reluctance; so that a municipal corporation which will expend, without hesitation, many thousands of dollars for the protection of the homes of the people against the ravages of fire, can hardly be induced to expend as many hundreds for the protection of the lives of the people against the ravages of disease. All these things must be remembered, and we must not expect too much in the way of public appreciation and encouragement. Contrariwise we must possess our souls in patience, doing what good we can, and striving in the meantime, to educate our people to some adequate appreciation of the value of sanitary science to the welfare of communities and States.

Inasmuch as we have no salaried officers, and no financial resources, we are obliged to refrain for the present from every sort of work that has to be directly paid for. Nevertheless there is work enough for us to do, and work too of very great importance.

First of all we must arrange our plans of procedure, and determine the organs, the special machinery, through which our health functions can be discharged with the best prospect of facility and efficiency of action. To this end we respectfully recommend the adoption of the following Ordinance, namely: ORDINANCE IN RELATION TO THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC HEALTH.

1. Be it Ordained by the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, That the five Censors of the Association, together with five other members, to be elected from the House of Counsellors, under the same regulations as to method of election, terms of office, et cætera, as are prescribed in Articles 24, 25 and 26 of the Constitution, for the election of Censors, be and are hereby constituted a Committee of Public Health.

2. Be it further ordained, That the Committee of Public Health shall be the

supervisory and immediately responsible agents of the Association in the discharge of its functions as Board of Health of the State.

3. Be it further ordained, That the Committee of Public Health shall act as a general committee of reference in all matters relating to the sanitary interests of the State, and this both during the sessions and during the intervals between the sessions of the Association.

4. Be it further ordained, That the Committee of Public Health shall prepare for the consideration of the Association such plans and suggestions as from time to time may seem to them expedient and proper.

In relation to the County Societies which, in their capacity of Boards of Health have been placed by the act of the General Assembly which we are now discussing under the general direction and control of this Association, we appreciate very thoroughly the fact, that over large portions of the State, circumstances will not warrant the expectation from them of any considerable amount of sanitary work. Still they ought to be able to do something. They ought, for example, to be able to prepare accurate accounts of their endemic and epidemic diseases. They ought to be able to prepare descriptions and charts of the geological and topographical formations, and the climatological characteristics of their respective counties; and to indicate the relations between these several classes of conditions and the public health. They cught also to be able, even in the absence of any registration law, to furnish approximately complete statements of the vital and mortuary statistics of their several counties, and these could not fail to be of considerable value. All judicious action must be based on accurate knowledge, and the reports here indicated, would furnish to this Association the information needed, for the intelligent administration of the trusts which have been confided to its keeping by the law-makers of the State.

The County Societies, therefore, should complete their sanitary organization, and hold themselves in readiness to take advantage of such opportunities to be of public service, as may from time to time present themselves.

What special form of sanitary machinery the several County Societies shall adopt is left largely to their own discretion, provided only, that it shall be in harmony with the health-law of the State, and with the plan of organization of this Association, and of course must be governed to some extent by the special circumstances of every special case. But inasmuch as uniformity in these arrangements is very much to be desired; and inasmuch, further, as the multiplication of offices in small societies is attended with many evident disadvantages, we venture to recommend that the Boards of Censors of the sev

eral County Societies be made the agents of these Societies for the discharge of their health functions.

MEDICAL LEGISLATION.

On the important subject of medical legislation we have some suggestions to make for the consideration of the Association. As the Board of Health of the State, it will be the duty of this Association to recommend to the General Assembly, from time to time, the enactment of such laws as may seem to be required for the advancement of the sanitary interests of the State; and as the organic representative of the Medical Profession, we conceive that it is also the province of this Association to recommend to the General Assembly the enactment of such laws as may be required for the regulation of the practice of medicine in the State. It seems to us, indeed, that no laws affecting the interests of the Medical Profession in any way, should be allowed to go before the General Assembly without first having received the endorsement of the Association.

Bills of the character here referred to are not infrequently pressed upon the consideration of the General Assembly, and this, too, upon the suggestion of medical men. But a few medical men without organization or concert of action with the profession at large, ought not to presume to influence legislation which is to affect the whole profession. It happens, too, unfortunately, that the legislation thus sought is not always free from serious objection. Take in illustration a single example: There was a proposition before the General Assembly during its last session to relieve physicians from the payment of the State license tax. Now we are of the opinion that it is very bad policy to be annoying the law-makers of the State with applications for such small favors as this. We are not willing that medical men shall condescend to be beggars. The spirit of the mendicant is little in harmony with the dignity and with the glorious traditions of our profession; and this clamoring for small favors cannot fail to degrade us in the estimation of thinking men. But not only do we believe it to be bad policy to beg the State for small favors. We go still further and take still higher ground. We ought to make it an inflexible rule never to seek to influence the enactment of laws that are for our own exclusive benefit. Let us ask nothing of the General Assembly which is not quite as much for the advantage of the general public as of the profession of medicine.

Of this character is the plan of a law to be entitled An Act to Regulate the Practice of Medicine in the State of Alabama, which we placed before the Association at our session in Selma last year. We present this bill again to the Association with some changes in the fourth section, and bespeak for it the

most careful and deliberate consideration. The time has not yet come when it is expedient to memorialize the General Assembly to enact it into a law, and we therefore recommend that no definite action be taken in regard to it during the present session. In its improved form it reads as follows:

AN ACT TO REGULATE THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE IN THE STATE OF ALABAMA. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Alabama, That no person shall be permitted to practice medicine, in any of its branches or departments, as a profession and means of livelihood, in this State, without having obtained a Diploma or Certificate of Qualification from some authorized Board of Medical Examiners as hereinafter provided.

SECTION 2. Be it further enacted, That the Board of Censors of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, organized according to the Constitution of the said Medical Association of the State of Alabama, which was adopted at its annual meeting in the city of Tuscaloosa, in March, 1873; and the Boards of Censors of the several County Medical Societies, which are in affiliation with the said Medical Association of the State of Alabama, and organized in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution just mentioned; and the Faculties of all Regular Medical Colleges holding charters from the General Assembly of the State of Alabama and recognized as of good standing by the said Medical Association of the State of Alabama, be and are hereby constituted the authorized Boards of Medical Examiners referred to in the first section of this act.

SECTION 3. Be it further enacted, That the standard of qualifications required of persons desiring to practice medicine in this State, together with the rules for the government of the authorized Boards of Medical Examiners, shall be such as may be determined from time to time by the said Medical Association of the State of Alabama in accordance with the provisions of its said Constitution of 1873.

SECTION 4. Be it further enacted, That every Diploma or Certificate of Qualification, authorizing any person to practice medicine in this State, which shall be issued by any authorized Board of Medical Examiners, shall be presented to the Probate Judge of the county in which said person resides, who shall officially endorse the same, and seal it with the seal of the county, and who shall also cause a full and fair copy of the same to be made in a well bound book to be kept for that purpose, and called the Register of Licensed Practitioners of Medicine, and for this service he shall be entitled to a fee of one dollar.

SECTION 5. Be it further enacted, That if any person holding a Diploma or Certificate to practice medicine from any authorized Board of Medical Exam

iners in this State, shall be charged in regular form with any grossly immoral, ungentlemanly, or unprofessional conduct, he shall be summoned before said Board of Medical Examiners, or before such other authorized Board of Medical Examiners as may be able most conveniently to exercise jurisdiction in the case, to answer to said charge; and if, after fair trial, and with the right of appeal, according to the provisions of section sixteen of the Constitution of the Medical Association of the State, he shall be adjudged to be guilty as charged, then his Diploma or Certificate shall be revoked; and of this revocation the Judge of Probate of the county in which said Diploma or Certificate may have been recorded, shall be officially notified by the Board of Medical Examiners before whom the case was tried, and he shall endorse said revocation across the face of the Record of the Diploma or Certificate in the Register of Licensed Practitioners of Medicine kept in his office; and after this said person shall be debarred from the further practice of medicine in this State, and shall become liable to all the penalties of this act as hereinafter provided.

SECTION 6. Be it further enacted, That any person practicing medicine in this State in violation of any of the provisions of this act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof before any court having competent jurisdiction, shall be fined in the sum of not less than fifty ($50) dollars nor more than five hundred ($500) dollars for every such offence, one-half of said fine to be paid to the prosecutor and the other half to the county treasury; and if the fine so imposed be not immediately paid, said person shall be imprisoned in the county jail for not less than one month nor more than one year for every such offence.

SECTION 7. Be it further enacted, That all persons who shall be actually engaged in the practice of medicine in any county of this State, before the organization of the Board of Medical Examiners in said county, and who hold the Diploma of Doctor of Medicine from any regular Medical College, shall be entitled to the Certificate of the Board of Medical Examiners, and to be inscribed in the Register of Licensed Practitioners of Medicine without examination as to qualification.

SECTION 8. Be it further enacted, That all persons who shall be actually engaged in the practice of medicine in any county of this State, before the organization of the Board of Examiners in said county, and who practice any irregular system of medicine so as not to be recognized by the Board of Medical Examiners as regular physicians, shall be licensed and registered by the Probate Judge, in such manner and form as he may himself elect; and all such irregular practitioners so licensed and registered by the Probate Judge of any