legally order alcohol in any form for patients he must obtain a permit. "No prescription must be issued for a greater quantity of intoxicating liquor than is necessary for use as a medicine by the person for whom prescribed, and in no case may spiritous liquor in excess of one pint within any period of ten days be prescribed for the same person by one or more physicians." Special blanks must be obtained with printed stubs attached for duplicate prescriptions. These blanks, bearing the number of the permit, are also numbered serially. The prescription must be made out in duplicate, giving date, full name of patient, his street and number, city, state, ailment for which prescribed, kind and quantity of liquor ordered, directions for administration, and be signed with the full name of the physician, his street and number, city and state. The physician must also write, in his own handwriting, the name of the pharmacist who is to fill the prescription. A prescription must not be filled but once. Also "every physician who prescribes intoxicating liquor is required to keep a record on book Form 1402 to be procured by him from the Director. The physician must keep a record alphabetically arranged for every prescription for intoxicating liquor issued by him, showing the date of the prescription, the amount and kind of liquor prescribed, the name of the patient to whom issued, the purpose or ailment for which prescribed, and the directions for use thereof, including the amount and frequency of the dose." The following Pharmacopoeial and National Formulary preparations "will be regarded as intoxicating liquor, and may not be sold, purchased, bartered, transported, imported, exported, delivered, furnished, possessed, or used except as specifically authorized in these regulations:" Blackberry Cordial Aromatic Elixir Elixir of Anise Red Aromatic Elixir Elixir of Bitter Orange Compound Elixir of Cardamom Aromatic Elixir of Glycyrrhiza Compound Spirit of Juniper Aromatic Tincture Tincture of Caramel Compound Tincture of Cardamon Compound Tincture of Lavender Compound Wine of Orange Wine of Wild Cherry A patient may obtain alcohol for external use in quantities not exceeding one pint, provided that the container bears the label, "a poison." Alcohol is legally made poisonous by the addition of one of the following drugs or preparations: Bichloride of Mercury Carbolic Acid and Tannic Acid Compound Solution of Cresol "Physicians may not prescribe liquor for their own personal use, and pharmacists should refuse to fill any such prescription presented to them." REPORTABLE DISEASES All communicable diseases, as soon as diagnosed, must be reported to the local board of health, or to the health officer of the district. While the list of reportable diseases and the rules for the prevention of the infection of others vary in the different states and cities, the following lists are complete, and represent those diseases that should be reported: All of the so-called infectious diseases of children, such as chicken pox, diphtheria, German measles, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, and whooping cough. Such special infections as cerebrospinal meningitis, favus, infectious conjunctivitis (pink eye), ophthalmia neonatorum, poliomyelitis, and trachoma. The general infections of dysentery (amebic and bacillary), gonorrhea, influenza, malaria, pneumonia, septic sore throat, small pox, syphilis, tetanus, tuberculosis (all forms), and typhoid, paratyphoid and typhus fever. Also the unusual conditions of anthrax, Asiatic cholera, glanders, leprosy, pellagra, plague, rabies, yellow fever, and sleeping sickness. Many communities do not consider it necessary to report chicken pox, infectious conjunctivitis (pink eye), influenza, malaria, mumps, and pneumonia, but certainly with the recent experience with influenza and pneumonia, at least these diseases should be reported. STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH A National Department of Health located in Washington cannot be many years longer delayed. There are already many public health services, but except in sudden serious epidemics the Central Government does not interfere with the Departments of Health of the several states. In each state the Department of Health stands between the individual and disease, and aims to promote the health of communities. Categorically the Department of Health of each state should promote health laws and sanitation in all forms; should teach, by bulletins, pamphlets, exhibits, lectures, and films, the truth concerning the prevention of disease; should ascertain and guarantee the purity of water and milk supplies, and of all the food products developed and made ready, for sale or for export, within the state; should investigate any food suspected of being adulterated or polluted that comes into the state; should regulate the disposal of sewage; should investigate all nuisances; should furnish when necessary free vaccines and antitoxins; should offer laboratory facilities for scientifically diagnosing infections; should assist local health boards, or take full charge, in the suppression of epidemics; should supervise medical practice in all its branches; and should, through its department of vital statistics, keep records of births, parentage, marriages, deaths, and of all reportable diseases. PART XV MEDICAL ETHICS It is essential that a graduate in medicine should know some of the ethics of his profession. Toward that end a copy of the "Principles of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association" is presented by special permission. COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION CHAPTER I THE DUTIES OF PHYSICIANS TO THEIR PATIENTS THE PHYSICIAN'S RESPONSIBILITY Section 1.-A profession has for its prime object the service it can render to humanity; reward or financial gain should be a subordinate consideration. The practice of medicine is a profession. In choosing this profession an individual assumes an obligation to conduct himself in accord with its ideals. PATIENCE, DELICACY AND SECRECY Section 2.-Patience and delicacy should characterize all the acts of a physician. The confidences concerning individual or domestic life entrusted by a patient to a physician and the defects of disposition or flaws of character observed in patients during medical attendance should be held as a trust and should never be revealed except when imperatively required by the laws of the state. There are occasions, however, when a physician must determine whether or not his duty to society requires him to take definite action to protect a healthy individual from becoming infected, because the physician has knowledge, obtained through the confidences entrusted to him as a physician, of a communicable disease to which the healthy individual is about to be exposed. In such a case, the physician should act as he would desire another to act toward one of his own family under like circumstances. Before he determines his course, the physician should know the civil law of his commonwealth concerning privileged communications. PROGNOSIS Section 3.-A physician should give timely notice of dangerous manifestations of the disease to the friends of the patient. He should neither exaggerate nor minimize the gravity of the patient's condition. He should assure himself that the patient or his friends have such knowledge of the patient's condition as will serve the best interests of the patient and the family. PATIENTS MUST NOT BE NEGLECTED Section 4.-A physician is free to choose whom he will serve. He should, however, always respond to any request for his assistance in an emergency or whenever temperate public opinion expects the service. Once having undertaken a case, a physician should not abandon or neglect the patient because the disease is deemed incurable; nor should he withdraw from the case for any reason until a sufficient notice of a desire to be released has been given the patient or his friends to make it possible for them to secure another medical attendant. CHAPTER II THE DUTIES OF PHYSICIANS TO EACH OTHER AND TO THE PROFESSION AT LARGE ARTICLE I.-DUTIES TO THE PROFESSION UPHOLD HONOR OF PROFESSION Section 1.-The obligation assumed on entering the profession requires the physician to comport himself as a gentleman and demands that he use every honorable means to uphold the dignity and honor of his vocation, to exalt its standards and to extend its sphere of usefulness. A physician should not base his practice on an exclusive dogma or sectarian system, for |