400 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



half -drilled fledglings. There should be a delegation appointed by 

 the board of health of each State, with the consent of the respective 

 Governors, to determine upon a universal course of study, to be 

 extended over four years, and a national or universal system and 

 standard of examination, so that, other things being equal, the 

 " M. D." of each school should have a corresponding qualitative and 

 quantitative value. Should this much-to-be-desired end prove im- 

 possible of attainment, then there is but one course left. It will 

 then become the bounden duty of each State to protect the gradu- 

 ates of its own school as well as its people from the services of men 

 graduating from schools in a neighboring State, or States, where the 

 education is not recognized as equal to that in the first-named State. 

 Unless they do this, all regulation of the home-school is but non- 

 sense. A law will therefore have to be made, by which graduates 

 from inferior schools in other States must make the State examination 

 in a given State, before they can be allowed to practice as " M. D.'s," 

 although the quack and empiric fields are still open to them. No 

 graduate should be allowed to practice in any State until he has re- 

 ceived a license for the purpose from the State Board of Health. 

 A careful record of all licenses should be kept for reference. 



The practice of medicine, or the advertising of practice, or of 

 medicines, under false pretenses, should be most stringently regu- 

 lated by the State. Several attempts have been made in this direc- 

 tion in different States, but in only a few have they been at all suc- 

 cessful. Massachusetts holds a most unenviable position in this 

 regard. Legislators labor under a great mistake with reference to 

 the desires of the medical profession on this point. They assume, 

 unjustly, that in some way the profession desire to interfere with the 

 rights of the individual to have such medical attendance as he 

 chooses to select. While this is not the case; while the profession, 

 as represented by its best men, has no desire to institute a medical 

 monopoly, it is very questionable if the rights of so-called matured 

 persons can be allowed to interfere or trifle with the health of minors 

 or irresponsible persons that the accidents of birth have placed in 

 their charge. "While I may have a certain right, under civil law, to 

 poison myself by the use of tobacco or opium, I have no right to 

 teach my child the use of such drugs ; in fact, the law would pre- 

 vent it, were outsiders to become acquainted with such a purpose 

 on my part. It is the same with the employment of the empiric or 

 quack. But there is still another side of this question which seems 

 to have entirely escaped the attention of legislators. The graduate 

 of the school acquires his right to the title " Doctor," or " M. D.," 



