diffuse through communities, through states, and through nations, that affection, that respect, and that consideration which its lofty aims and humane purposes justly entitle it to expect.

It was such views of the high mission of our science, and the elevated character and honorable purposes that should characterize its professors, that suggested to the earliest fathers of medicine the necessity of a code of ethics as a professional guide.

Looking back to the first chapter in the History of Medicine—at that point that separates mythical from scientific history, four hundred years before Christ-we find that the great father of medicine, the immortal Hippocrates,-immortal, because his name must live

"When seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay;
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away."

It will live in the memory of medical men, because they can not forget that his mighty mind perceived the great defects in the systems of all his progenitors in medicine. He grappled with the difficulties and mysteries that encumbered their systems, and adding reason and argument to the uncertain and mythical rules of Egypt and Greece, exalted medicine to the dignity of a science. He laid the foundation of medical science, on which this day we have the honor to practice; and to him we are indebted for the first code of ethics; his cele brated oath was the first model upon which all subsequent codes have been based. It is still known as the

HIPPOCRATIC OATH.

"I swear by Apollo the Physician, and Esculapius, and Health, and All Heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that according to my ability and judgment I will keep this oath and this stipulation: To reckon him who taught me this Art

equally dear to me as my parents; to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my brother's, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and an oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one, if asked, nor suggest any such counsel. With purity and holiness I will pass my life and practice my art. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefits of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption. Whatever in connection with my professional practice, or not in connection with it, I see or hear in the life of man, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.

"While I continue to keep this oath inviolate, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot!"

As the science of medicine has grown and expanded-as its professors have entertained continually more enlarged views of the scope of its influence upon civilization, progress, and even the fate of nations, inasmuch as the fate of nations must ultimately depend upon the health and strength of their population-as day by day they saw that it was asserting more clearly its claims to be considered an exact science, and felt

the importance in this view of having each individual member of this scientific profession, reflect his due proportion of honor upon the art that honored him-they framed their different codes of ethics. There has been none, however, that combined all the admirable qualities of truth and justice, high moral tone, and completeness of detail, that is found in the Ethics of the American Medical Association, and adopted by the several State Medical Associations and local Medical Societies.

I feel that I must consider it a most important part of this discourse, to read to you this splendid compendium of the laws governing a physician's professional life Let its several provisions impress you deeply-lose not a word of its high moral tone, and its just and honorable requirements—and believe me, that your professional respectability and good standing will in no small degree depend upon how you may in your daily professional life serve and illustrate its principles.

CODE OF MEDICAL ETHICS.

OF THE DUTIES OF PHYSICIANS TO THEIR PATIENTS, AND OF THE OBLIGATIONS OF PATIENTS TO THEIR PHYSICIANS,

ART. I.-Duties of Physicians to their Patients.

SECTION 1. A physician should not only be ever ready to obey the calls of the sick, but his mind ought also to be imbued with the greatness of his mission, and the responsibility he habitually incurs in its discharge. Those obligations are the more deep and enduring, because there is no tribunal other than his own conscience to adjudge penalties for carelessness or neglect. Physicians should, therefore, minister to the sick with due impressions of the importance of their office; reflecting that the ease, the health, and the lives of those committed to their charge, depend on their skill, attention and fidelity, They should study, also, in their deportment, so to unite tenderness with firmness, and condescension with authority, so as to inspire the minds of their patients with gratitude, respect and confidence.

SEC. 2. Every case committed to the charge of a physician should be treated with attention, steadiness and humanity. Reasonable indulgence should be granted to the mental imbecility and caprices of the sick. Secrecy and delicacy, when required by peculiar circumstances, should be strictly observed; and the familiar and confidential intercourse to which physicians are admitted in their professional visits, should be used with discretion and with the most scrupulous regard to fidelity and honor. The obligation of secrecy extends beyond the period of professional services; none of the privacies of personal and domestic life, no infirmity of disposition or flaw of character observed during professional attendance, should ever be divulged by the physician except when he is imperatively required to do so. The force and necessity of this obligation are, indeed, so great, that professional men have, under certain circumstances, been protected in their observance of secrecy by courts of justice.

SEC. 3. Frequent visits to the sick are, in general, requisite, since they enable the physician to arrive at a more perfect knowledge of the disease,—to meet promptly every change which may occur, and also tend to preserve the confidence of the patient. But unnecessary visits are to be avoided, as they give useless anxiety to the patient, tend to diminish the authority of the physician, and render him liable to be suspected of interested motives.

SEC. 4. A physician should not be forward to make gloomy prognostications, because they savor of empiricism, by magnifying the importance of his services in the treatment or cure of the disease, but he should not fail, on proper occasions, to give to the friends of the patient timely notice of danger when it really occurs; and even to the patient himself, if absolutely necessary, This office, however, is so peculiarly alarming when executed by him, that it ought to be declined whenever it can be assigned to any other person of sufficient judgment and delicacy. For the physician should be the minister of hope and comfort to the sick; that by such cordials to the drooping spirit, he may smooth the bed of death, revive expiring life, and counteract the depressing influence of those maladies which often disturb the tranquility of the most resigned in their last moments. The life of a sick person can be shortened not only by the acts, but also by the words or the manner of a physician. It is, therefore, a sacred duty to guard himself carefully in this respect, and to avoid all things which have a tendency to discourage the patient and to depress his spirits.

SEC. 5. A physician ought not to abandon a patient because the case is deemed incurable; for his attendance may continue to be highly useful to the patient, and comforting to the relatives around him, even in the last period of

a fatal malady, by alleviating pain and other symptoms, and by soothing men. tal anguish. To decline attendance under such circumstances, would be sacrificing to fanciful delicacy and mistaken liberality, that moral duty which is independent of and far superior to all pecuniary consideration.

SEC. 6. Consultations should be promoted in difficult or protracted cases, as they give rise to confidence, energy and more enlarged views in practice. SEC. 7. The opportunity which a physician not unfrequently enjoys of promoting and strengthening the good resolutions of his patients, suffering under the consequences of vicious conduct, ought never to be neglected. His counsels, or even remonstrances, will give satisfaction, not offense, if they be prof, fered with politeness, and evince a genuine love of virtue, accompanied by a sincere interest in the welfare of the person to whom they are addressed.

ART. II-Obligations of Patients to their Physicians.

SEC. 1. The members of the medical profession, upon whom is enjoined the performance of so many important and arduous duties towards the community, and who are required to make so many sacrifices of comfort, ease and health, for the welfare of those who avail themselves of their services, certainly have a right to expect and require that their patients should entertain a just sense of the duties which they owe to their medical attendants.

SEC. 2. The first duty of a patient is, to select as his medical adviser one who has received a regular professional education. In no trade or occupation do mankind rely on the skill of an untaught artist; and in medicine, confessedly the most difficult and intricate of the sciences, the world ought not to suppose that knowledge is intuitive.

SEC. 3. Patients should prefer a physician whose habits of life are regular, and who is not devoted to company, pleasure, or to any pursuit incompatible with his professional obligations. A patient should also confide the care of himself and family, as much as possible, to one physician; for a medical man who has become acquainted with the peculiarities of constitution, habits and predispositions of those he attends is more likely to be successful in his treatment than one who does not possess that knowledge.

A patient who has thus selected his physician should always apply for advice in what may appear to him trivial cases, for the most fatal results often supervene on the slightest accidents. It is of still more importance that he should apply for assistance in the forming stage of violent diseases; it is to a neglect of this precept that medicine owes much of the uncertainty and imperfection with which it has been reproached.