SEC. 2.-It cannot be justly expected of physicians, to furnish certificates of inability to serve on juries, or to perform militia duty; to testify to the state of health of persons wishing to insure their lives, obtain pensions, or the like, without due compensation. But to persons in indigent circumstances such services should always be cheerfully and freely accorded.

SEC. 3. Some general rules should be adopted by the physicians in every town or district relative to the minimum pecuniary acknowledgment from their patients; and it should be deemed a point of honor to adhere to these rules with as much uniformity as varying circumstances will admit.

SEC. 4. It is derogatory to professional character for physicians to pay or offer to pay commissions to any person whatsoever who may recommend to them patients requiring general or special treatment or surgical operations. It is equally derogatory to professional character for physicians to solicit or to receive such commissions.

CHAPTER III.-THE DUTIEs of the ProfESSION TO THE PUBLIC

SECTION 1.-As good citizens it is the duty of physicians to be very vigilant for the welfare of the community, and to bear their part in sustaining its laws, institutions and burdens; especially should they be ready to cooperate with the proper authorities in the administration and the observance of sanitary laws and regulations, and they should also be ever ready to give counsel to the public in relation to subjects especially appertaining to their pro

fession, as on questions of sanitary police, public hygiene and legal medicine.

SEC. 2.—It is the province of physicians to enlighten the public in regard to quarantine regulations; to the location, arrangement and dietaries of hospitals, asylums, schools, prisons and similar institutions; in regard to measures for the prevention of epidemic and contagious diseases; and when pestilence prevails, it is their duty to face the danger, and to continue their labors for the alleviation of the suffering people, even at the risk of their own lives.

SEC. 3. Physicians, when called on by legally constituted authorities, should always be ready to enlighten inquests and courts of justice on subjects strictly medical, such as involve questions relating to sanity, legitimacy, murder by poison or other violent means, and various subjects embraced in the science of medical jurisprudence. It is but just, however, for them to expect due compensation for their services.

SEC. 4. It is the duty of physicians, who are frequent witnesses of the great wrongs committed by charlatans, and of the injury to health and even destruction of life caused by the use of their treatment, to enlighten the public on these subjects, and to make known the injuries sustained by the unwary from the devices and pretensions of artful impostors.

SEC. 5. It is the duty of physicians to recognize and by legitimate patronage to promote the profession of pharmacy, on the skill and proficiency of which depends the

reliability of remedies, but any pharmacist who, although educated in his own profession, is not a qualified physician, and who assumes to prescribe for the sick, ought not to receive such countenance and support. Any druggist or pharmacist who dispenses deteriorated or sophisticated drugs or who substitutes one remedy for another designated in a prescription ought thereby to forfeit the recognition and influence of physicians.

VII

REMARKS ON THE ABSTRACT

"physicians should"

THIS document, though offered as "suggestive and advisory," is, in reality, a system of laws commanding that not might obey, etc.,."should never forget," etc., etc. Indeed the imperative spirit pervades nearly all the sections of the three chapters of this "suggestive and advisory" production which does not suggest but very decidedly orders what the duties of physicians should be. This wrong title will be apparent to the most casual reader.

Some of the omissions are unwise, unjust, and unpardonable. Among them, the blotting out of the second article of the first chapter of the original, relating to the obligations of patients to their physicians; and the second article of the third chapter, on the obligations of the public to physicians. The framers of the document of 1847, inspired with the idea that there could be no justice, no mercy, no comity without reciprocity, which is the parent of good actions, had wisely introduced these two articles to impress upon the reader's mind that the obligations of patient and physician must be mutual, and that those of the public and the physician must also be mutual;

therefore neither the public nor patients should be kept in ignorance of the nature of these reciprocal obligations which they have every right to know.

The "suggestive and advisory document" contains certain additions which have no legitimate place in any system of medical morals; such as sections three and four in the first article of the second chapter. These sections relate to the organization of medical societies and are surely incongruous in a system of morals.

The fourth section of the first article of the second chapter of the original appears in the abstract as its eighth section and contains some underscored additions and alterations that call for its reproduction at this particular place. These additions and alterations are not necessary because the right interpretation of the spirit of the original covers the ground.

"It is equally derogatory to professional character for physicians to hold patents for any surgical instruments or medicines; to accept rebates on prescriptions or surgical appliances; to assist unqualified persons to evade the legal restrictions governing the practice of medicine; or to dispense, or promote the use of secret medicines, for if such nostrums are of real efficacy, any concealment regarding them is inconsistent with beneficence and professional liberality, and if mystery alone give them public notoriety, such craft implies either disgraceful ignorance or fraudulent avarice. It is highly reprehensible for physicians to give certificates attesting the efficacy of secret medicines, or other substances used therapeutically."