Annual Addeess by the Peesident. 
9 
a ^^six weeks^ course/^^ or a course of ^‘^bome study/^ is free to enter upon 
a career— can it be termed other than a career of imposture and crime? 
The inability of our law-making bodies to handle the question of medical 
practi'ce is well nigh incomprehensible, especially when the responsibili- 
ties of no profession exceed those of the medical profession. 'That one^s 
life, or 'the lives of those dearest to him, should be innocently placed in 
the hands of a charlatan is horrible to contemplate ; yet legislators, with 
an eye more to their own glory than the welfare of their constituents, 
allow the crime to run its course year after year, making no attempt to 
stem or even check the current. 'The fact is, the public fails to distin- 
guish between the pretender and the scholar. Fine dress, easy manners, 
an elegantly furnished office, in short, show is mistaken for knowledge. A 
glib tongue does not indicate necessarily a skillful surgeon — it may indi- 
cate a consummate knave — but he must have a steady, well-trained 
hand, guided by a thorough knowledge of anatomy. If the accumulation 
of a fortune be an index of success, then has many a ^^quack’^ been suc- 
cessful; but the same is true of many another wicked and immoral per- 
son judged by the same standard. Sooner or later the pretender is un- 
masked by those who see him in the true light, and branded as a ^Traud,’^ 
he is to the great body of truthseekers forever an alien — an outcast. Still 
the public fails to realize the seriousness of the case, and frequently, it is 
only after repeated exposures of malpractice that the charlatan is finally 
dethroned. 
THE POLITICAL APPOINTEE. 
Again, with indignation, the 'Man of Science beholds the competent, 
scholarly man, the specialist, the enthusiast in his chosen field ^Turned 
down and ouF^ to make place for the so-called ^^political appointee.’^ I 
call to mind in my own profession, geology, the dismissal of a most com- 
petent and highly trained state geologist for the purpose of making 
^Toom” for one totally ignorant of the first principles of the subject. 
^^Brawn’^ and ^^pulh^ may be temporarily triumphant, but what of truth 
can such an one give the world? Well may we blush with shame that 
in these ^ffiays of scientific achievement,’^ the last days of the N'ineteenth 
century, in the ^ffiest age 'the world has ever seen,” such an act of vandal- 
ism is tolerated by a free people. This is but a single instance, yet it 
well illustrates the fact that to the wicked all things are unhoty — ^to the 
’(As 'bearing upon this statement, attention is called to the following advertise- 
ments clipped from a well known Texas daily paper: 
T. “How soon graduate medicine, dentistry, law, pharmacy, osteopathy, elec- 
trology. Box , , 111.’’ 
II. “Hypnotism, ocultisim, magnetic healing taught by mail. iFree lessons, 
nr. . Ave., , 111.” 
