934 
rule was the very thing which it was pro- 
posed to do, and which had been done in 
other States, and which it was very neces- 
sary to do in New York, the medical society 
of that State amended the rules of conduct, 
so that it or its members might, at discre- 
tion, enter into professional relations with 
any or all persons whom the law of the State 
at that time recognized to be practitioners 
of medicine. When this action was brought 
to the attention of this national body, it re- 
sulted, not, as might have been expected, in 
the amendment or the abrogation of the 
rule which had grown obsolete in the march 
of events, but in its tacit reaffirmation and 
in the opprobrious excommunication, for 
the time being, of the entire profession of 
the great Empire State. This action, viewed 
impartially after the lapse of nearly twenty 
years, becomes the more extraordinary 
when it is observed that similar action was 
never taken with regard to Massachusetts 
or Rhode Island or Mississippi, the societies 
of none of which had ever adopted the 
prescribed rules of conduct ; nor with regard 
to California or Illinois or Colorado, each 
of which had, by overt act, if not by open 
declaration, so far as this rule is concerned, 
taken an equally non-conformist position. 
It is not surprising that, with such an ex- 
ample before the State societies, the experi- 
ment in consistency has not been repeated. 
But the movement of effective regulative 
legislation, once inaugurated, happily spread 
with great rapidity. Mixed boards of 
licensure are now to be found in the ma- 
jority of the States of the Union, and in 
the majority of such boards are to be found 
members of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation engaged in issuing licenses to prac- 
titioners of exclusive dogmas, and sitting 
in consultation with sectarian physicians, 
not over a dose of medicine, but over the 
vastly more vital question of the qualifica- 
tions of those who are to care for the sick 
of our Republic. 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. XIII. No. 337. 
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND SOCIETY AT 
THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH 
CENTURY. 
The result of the twenty-five years of 
statutory regulation of medical practice 
are in striking contrast with the results of 
the quarter of a century of attempted reg- 
ulations by methods of proscription. At 
the conclusion of that humiliating experi- 
ment, as at the beginning of it, there was 
not a single effective medical practice law 
on the statute books of a single State of the 
Union. To-day there are forty-eight State 
or territorial licensing boards, most of 
them being composed of representatives of 
both the regular and the sectarian schools 
of practice. The laws of the different 
States are of varying efficiency, the one 
procured by the Medical Society of the 
State of New York, at the price of yet- 
maintained excommunication from this 
body, standing to-day as the model of ex- 
cellence for the entire country. Under 
the influence of these laws, instigated by 
members of the American Medical Associa- 
tion,and which, after all, are but expressions 
of the sentiments of the medical profession 
confirmed by society at large, many sub- 
stantial reforms have been accomplished. 
The medical schools, which in this country 
have labored bravely and efficiently under 
adverse conditions, have been stimulated 
to increased efficiency. One of the first 
changes accomplished was the practical 
standardization of requirements to enter 
practice ; and one of the first features of this 
standardization was to secure for the stu- 
dent ‘the aids actually furnished by an- 
atomy, physiology, pathology and organic 
chemistry’—the four cardinal studies 
which, strange-sounding as it seems, it 
was necessary solemnly and specifically to 
insist upon a half-century ago. It follows, 
therefore, that with broadened and in- 
creasingly uniform curricula, it cannot be 
said that schools, even of sectarian an- 
