SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The obligations and the rights of physicians 

 throughout the state of New York are matters of 

 such importance that we propose to give those ex- 

 tracts from the laws which bear upon the ques- 

 tion of registration, and also such opinions as 

 have come to our notice under the law. This mat- 

 ter is being critically examined by very many prac- 

 titioners, and it is a subject about which there 

 should be no doubt : if any exists, the legislature 

 should, at its coming session, enact such a law as 

 will not be subject to the different interpretations 

 ■which seem to have been given to the present law. 

 The law under which physicians register is chapter 

 518 of the laws of 1880. Section 2 of the law 

 reads as follows : " Every person now lawfully en- 

 gaged in the practice of physic and surgery within 

 the state shall, on or before the first day of Octo- 

 ter, eighteen hundred and eighty, and every per- 

 son hereafter duly authorized to practise physic 

 and surgery, shall, before commencing to practise, 

 register in the clerk's office of the county where 

 he is practising, or intends to commence the prac- 

 tice of physic and surgery, in a book to be kept 

 by said clerk, his name, residence, and place of 

 birth, together with his authority for so practising 

 physic and sui'gery as prescribed in this act." 

 Very many physicians neglected to register before 

 the 1st of October, and in the following year 

 another act was passed, and is chapter 186, laws 

 of 1881. The section bearing on the point in ques- 

 tion (section 1) is as follows : " Any person who 

 was duly authorized to practise physic . . . and 

 who shall not have registered as required by the 

 provision of said chapter (513, laws of 1880) shall 

 have until the first day of October, eighteen hun- 

 dred and eighty-one, in which to register as pre- 

 scribed by section two of said act, entitled ' An 

 act,' etc." 



Several questions have arisen since these laws 

 were enacted, among others the following : can a 

 physician register who is a graduate of one of the 

 medical colleges of the state, but who was out of 

 the state at the time these acts were passed, and 



No. 201. — 1886. 



did not return until after the 1st of October, 1881 ? 

 The following case occurred in Brooklyn, and 

 practically answers the question in the affirmative. 

 The papers referring to it and the other cases 

 mentioned hereafter are in the office of the clerk 

 of Kings county, and the substance of them only 

 is here given. Willis E. Crowell received a 

 diploma in June, 1874, from the New York eclectic 

 medical college, authorizing him to practise 

 medicine. He subsequently left the state, being 

 absent five years, and was not within the state to 

 register in compliance with the law of 1880. In 

 1883 he applied to the clerk of Kings county for 

 registration, but was refused. On Feb. 1, 1888, 

 Hon. Charles F. Brown, justice of the supreme 

 court, ordered the clerk to register his name. A 

 similar case occurred in Brooklyn in 1885, in which 

 the county clerk refused to register Horace B. 

 Ransom, who had a diploma from the University 

 of the city of New York, granted in 1857. Dr. 

 Ransom had soon thereafter gone to Burlington, 

 lo., not returning until 1885. Upon presentation 

 of tlie facts to the Hon. E. M. CuUen, justice of 

 the supreme court, he ordered the clerk to register 

 him. The order is dated Aj)ril 22, 1885. In Janu- 

 ary, 1886, Ashbel P. Grinnell applied to the clerk 

 of Kings county to be registered, and was refused. 

 The facts in the case were these : Dr. Grinnell 

 received his diploma from Bellevue hospital medi- 

 cal college in Mai'ch, 1869 ; afterwards he moved 

 to the state of Vermont, where he resided until 

 Jan. 1, 1886, when he again came within the state. 

 In reference to this case, Hon. E. M. CuUen, jus- 

 tice of the supreme court, said, "I think, on 

 making the affidavit or exhibiting the diploma or 

 certificate, a physician is entitled to be registered 

 at any time. The first of October, 1881, men- 

 tioned in the act. does not limit the time within 

 which physicians can be registered, but any phy- 

 sician practising after that time without register- 

 ing is guilty of an offence." It would appear 

 from this latter case to be the opinion of Justice 

 Cullen that a physician not only can register at 

 any time, but must do so, even though he neglected 

 to do so prior to Oct. 1, 1881, and that if he fails 

 to do so he ' is guilty of an offence.' Until this 

 decision was made, a considerable number of 

 physicians had applied to be registered, who had, 



