928 
pionship of Senator Hawley, by the terms 
of which the medical corps of the army is 
subjected to unfair and humiliating dis- 
crimination. This law grades the medical 
department for rank, promotion, and, in 
consequence, for pay, below every other 
department and special corps of the army, 
and, with the exception of second lieuten- 
ants, it is graded below the line. In ac- 
cordance with its provisions, a medical of- 
ficer, to obtain a coloneley, must pass 
through three times as many files as an of- 
ficer of either the Quartermaster’s, the Sub- 
sistence or the Pay Departments; more 
than twice as many as an officer of Engi- 
neers or of Ordinance, and nearly twice as 
many as an Officer of the Signal Corps. 
The effect of this discrimination is not only 
to lower the rank and pay of medical offi- 
cers, but must result in lessening the effi- 
ciency of the corps by repelling men of 
spirit and worth. 
In every war known to history the deaths 
from preventable diseases have exceeded 
those due to battle. At no time has hy- 
gienic science been so resourceful as at 
present in preventing disease. A law 
which fails to give to armies, either in peace 
or in war, the fullest protection by the ap- 
plication of the latest scientific develop- 
ments at the hands of specially trained 
medical men is unjust to the soldier, to so- 
ciety and to the medical profession. In 
view of these facts, the army reorganiza- 
tion law of the last Congress was inexplic- 
able and inexcusable. It, however, forces 
itself upon your consideration from another 
standpoint. Physicians are citizens of the 
Republic. As such they are intellectually, 
socially, politically and officially the 
equals of any other element of the body 
politic. There is no station to which they 
may not attain ; there is no distinction of 
which they may not be the recipients. 
Their rights are of manhood origin, and 
their prerogatives are inherent. They are, 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. XIII. No. 337. 
in very fact, peers of the realm, and the 
peers of any peers of any realm. When 
the status of any number of physicians in 
their representative relationship to society 
is lowered, the status of the medical pro- 
fession in general is menaced in correspond- 
ing degree. When the Congress, by the 
enactment of a law, degrades, relatively, 
the status of an important body of medical 
men engaged in the public service, it strikes 
at the status of every physician in the 
country. It becomes, therefore, the duty 
of every member of the medical profession, 
jealous of his rights, his prerogatives and 
the fair name he may leave his children to 
resent, aS personal ‘between himself and 
every member of the Congress who voted 
for this law, the action which cast a stigma 
upon our profession. 
It has been the conviction of many en- 
lightened members of the medical profes- 
sion that the means employed by the gen- 
eral government for the protection and 
promotion of the public health are capable 
of improvement. These duties have de- 
volved upon the Marine Hospital Service, 
which was originally designed to give suc- 
cor to unfortunate people, without other 
domicile, who were employed upon our 
rivers, lakes and the high seas. With the 
growth of sanitary science this service, 
being the only established agency available 
by the government for this purpose, has 
been largely diverted from its original ob- 
ject. As a result, under the present wise 
administration of its Surgeon-General, its 
representatives are abroad investigating the 
sanitary condition of foreign cities, its 
agents are at our ports beating back threat- 
ened epidemics, while valuable investiga- 
tions are being conducted in its laboratories. 
In the exercise of its quarantine functions, 
however, it comes in conflict with the police 
power that is guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion to the different States. The friction 
thus engendered has been especially marked 
