ciety, but Dr. Johnson and others of the sixty-three who voted resolutions "assailing" the educational system of the State, making even a friendly press "hostile," and bringing popular contempt and ridicule upon a profession whose honor and good name they ought to have maintained. When those resolutions were reported I remonstrated against their passage, declaring that before no civilized people could such a position be sustained, and the result has corroborated my statement. I was by some answered that they did not care for the opinions of the press or the people. I can only say in this connection that whoever loves his profession more than his own interests, opinions and prejudices, will labor to increase the public respect and esteem in which it is held. It is that more than anything else that determines the average of morals and intellect that enters it, and the history of civilization shows nothing plainer than that a diminished public esteem and confidence in any profession has been the unfailing prelude to its decay. If public sentiment is wrong it is our duty to educate it and set it right, and not to demean ourselves and increase the contempt it already has for us.

I also deny having "loaded the State Society with epithets, or having carried on against it a wanton crusade." Not until it had "wantonly" assailed my character, impugned my motives, and advertised me as an apostate" throughout the length and breadth of the country; not until forbearance ceased to be a virtue; not until a party of men whom I deemed to be dishonorable schemers, had assumed the control of that Society in furtherance of their own selfish interests, did I araign it before the American Medical Association for its flagrant violation of ethics, and attempted degradation of our profession. Not with malice, but with a desire to obtain from the authors of our code, a decision of the questions vexing the profession of this State, a settlement of which a year of conflict had shown to be impossible, and a continuance of which could but add to the scandal this controversy has caused to the profession. When I criticise

the State Society, I do not intend to include all its members, but only those who by their inconsistent conduct have brought this discredit upon it, and who evidently packed the last meeting hoping to destroy the regular medical school at Ann Arbor. The whole of Dr. Johnson's charges against me I pronounce untrue, and demand of him the evidence by which he would substantiate them. It is not I who have "joined hands with popular igno rance and prejudice," but Dr. J. and his co workers who have falsely accused me and others of our faculty of "aiding and abetting" homeopathy, and thus exciting "prejudice " against

us.

I must also deny that the object or meaning of the resolu tions was such as given by Dr. J. in his letter. He says the first resolution means that the "State Society was not content' with homoeopathy in the University, 'not content' that it should be fostered by the State, and further, that the teaching of Hahnemannic vagaries in the University, 'is not, in our opinion, calculated to maintain or advance medicine as a science, nor is it consistent with the honor or interest of the profession.""

Now I have the most conclusive proof to show that this was not the meaning of that resolution, nor opposition to homœopathy the object of any of the resolutions reported by the committee of which Dr. Johnson was a member. It should be remembered that two of this committee, although agreeing to present the first three of the resolutions, voted against the passage of the first and second. To the third no member of the Society

objected.

Let us quote the resolutions entire, in order more fully to consider and analyze them.

Resolved, Ist, That we are not content with the existing situation of the medical department of the University, because in our opinion it is not calculated to maintain or advance medicine as a science, nor is it consistent with the honor or interest of the profession.

2d, That a State under our form of government cannot successfully teach either medicine or theology, and that the medical profession ought to be its own teachers, and the guardian of its honor.

3d, That we regard all legislative interference with the government of the University as unconstitutional, wrong in principle and harmful in its results.

4th, That section four of the constitution of this State Society be amended so as to read as follows, viz:

SECTION 4. The resident members shall be elected by a vote of a majority present at any regular meeting, their eligibility having been previously reported by the Committee on Admission; provided, that no person shall be admitted to fellowship who proposes to practice in accordance with any so-called "pathy" or sectarian school of medicine, or who has recently graduated from a medical school whose professors teach or assist in teaching those who propose to graduate in or practice irregular medicine."

Now does not this first resolution distinctly state that they are not content with the "Medical Department?" If they meant University, why did they not say so? Such a confusion of terms is not to be expected by a committee the chairman of which is such a stickler for literary culture. No, they did not mean that they were not content with homoeopathy in the University, for if they did, and had so expressed it, there would not have been a dissenting voice in that Society. The evidence of this I have, first, in the admission of members of that committee.

I offered to Dr. Pratt, chairman of that committee, a set of resolutions that protested against the introduction of homœopathy into the University on the ground of its being sectarian in character, and asking that all sectarianism be eliminated from the University, and was answered by Dr. Pratt that he could not entertain those resolutions; that he did not wish to open the "old fight;" that "he could say nothing against homoeopathy." The next day Dr. Ranney, Secretary of the Society, formally presented similar resolutions, but no mention was ever made of them by the committee, and no word was said in their own resolutions questioning the right of the State to teach homeopathy in the University.

I argued that on the set of resolutions that I offered, we could do battle without incurring the charge of bigotry.

It is contrary to the genius of our educational system to sup

port sectarianism. It was one of the recommendations in the President's last message to Congress (then published) to so change the constitution that no State could make such appropriations as the one made by our last Legislature in support of sectarian medicine, and it has since then been incorporated as a plank in the republican platform. On this line we could have successfully fought homoeopathy, without disgracing our profession, and exciting the ridicule of the intelligent portion of our commonwealth. I said, if under this principle, the regular medical department is proved to be sectarian, let it be abolished. No one will go more cheerfully than I when I see the gun "spiked" and not left for the enemy to use upon us as an engine for the promotion of error.

But no, homeopathy was not what they were fighting, so in effect said Dr. Pratt to me then. So afterward did Dr. G. K. Johnson himself acknowledge to me, declaring that it was the regular medical department of the University that he wished to break up. And so declared Dr. Brown, another member of this committee, and not only to me, but also to others, as I am informed.

For one I deny the right of any set of men to assassinate the Medical Department of the University, and I shall resist such an outrage to the extent of my ability. And if our "code of ethics" is published as a show of honorable and noble purposes, but is to be used merely as a screen from behind which to stab our rivals, the sooner it is known the better.

That it could not have been on the ground of opposition stated in the preamble, that these resolutions were framed and that the members of the society voted for them, is plainly shown by an analysis of the past and present attitude of the society toward homoeopathy and other irregular medicine. The preamble states as a reason for their action the following, the italics being their own:

The present position of the Medical Department of the University and our relations to it bristle with difficulties-difficulties springing on the one hand, from the legal relations of the school to the Legislature and to the Board of Regents and, on the other hand, from the unwillingness of the

professiou to hold any parley or make any compromise with irregular medicine. Let us examine the history of the Society for the past few years and see how that unwillingness has been shown.

When at a meeting of the Society in Grand Rapids in 1872, a member of the Society read an able paper showing the active efforts homoeopaths were taking to establish themselves in the University, and calling upon the Society to take some efficient steps to defeat their object, he was insulted by having his paper referred back to him as unfit for publication in the transactions.

In 1873 a committee of the State Society was appointed under the following resolution:

Resolved, That a representative committee of five members of this Society, be appointed by the President, to confer with the Board of Regents and the Medical Faculty, in respect to the relations of the Medical Department of the University, to the medical profession of the State, and in respect to the future conduct of the said department under any contingencies, necessitating a change in its organization.

This resolution was passed at the time when the question of introduction of homoeopathy was under consideration by the Regents. Dr. Pratt, of and for this committee, read a long report before the Regents, prefaced with the assertion that their mission did not "regard any contingencies that might affect the internal organization of the medical school under their charge." Both he and Dr. Hitchcock reproved a member of this committee for making a minority report representing that the State Society objected to the introduction of homeopathy into the University.

Still more decidedly did Drs. Pratt and Johnson show their willingness to "parley" and "compromise" with irregular med icine by their efforts to secure a law preventing any regular from commencing the practice of medicine in this State until he had received a certificate from a Board of Medical Examiners the majority of which should be composed of irregular practitioners. From the bill which they framed I make the following quotations, italics mine: