common funds for its support, when fees are dispensed with which might justly be claimed. § 10. When a physician who has been engaged to attend a case of midwifery is absent, and another is sent for, if delivery is accomplished during the attendance of the latter, he is entitled to the fee, but should resign his patient to the practitioner first engaged. ART. VI. Of differences between physicians. § 1. Diversity of opinion and opposition of interest may, in the medical as in other professions, sometimes occasion controversy and even contention. Whenever such cases unfortunately occur, and can not be immediately terminated, they should be referred to the arbitration of a sufficient number of physicians or a court-medical. § 2. As peculiar reserve must be maintained by physicians toward the public in regard to professional matters, and as there exist numerous points in medical ethics and etiquette through which the feelings of medical men may be painfully assailed in their intercourse with each other, and which can not be understood or appreciated by general society, neither the subject-matter of such differences nor the adjudication of the arbitrators should be made public, as publicity in a case of this nature may be personally injurious to the individuals concerned, and can hardly fail to bring discredit on the faculty. ART. VII. Of pecuniary acknowledgments. Some general rules should be adopted by the faculty, in every town or district, relative to pecuniary acknowledgments from their patients; and it should be deemed a point of honor to adhere to these rules with as much uniformity as varying circumstances will admit. OF THE DUTIES OF THE PROFESSION TO THE PUBLIC, AND of the OBLIGATIONS OF THE PUBLIC TO THE PROFESSION. ART. I.-Duties of the profession to the public. § 1. As good citizens, it is the duty of physicians to be ever vigilant for the welfare of the community, and to bear their part in sustaining its institutions and burdens; they should also be ever ready to give counsel to the public in relation to matters especially appertaining to their profession, as on subjects of medical police, public hygiene, and legal medicine. It is their province to enlighten the public in regard to quarantine regulations; the location, arrangement, and dietaries of hospitals, asylums, schools, prisons, and similar institutions; in relation to the medical police of towns, as drainage, ventilation, etc.; and in regard to measures for the prevention of epidemic and contagious diseases; and when pestilence prevails, it is their duty to face the danger, and to continue their labors for the alleviation of the suffering, even at the jeopardy of their own lives. § 2. Medical men should also be always ready, when called on by the legally constituted authorities, to enlighten coroners' inquests and courts of justice on subjects strictly medical-such as involve questions relating to sanity, legitimacy, murder by poisons or other violent means, and in regard to the various other subjects embraced in the science of Medical Jurisprudence. But in these cases, and especially where they are required to make a postmortem examination, it is just, in consequence of the time, labor, and skill required, and the responsibility and risk they incur, that the public should award them a proper honorarium. § 3. There is no profession by the members of which eleemosynary services are more liberally dispensed than the medical, but justice requires that some limits should be placed to the performance of such good offices. Poverty, professional brotherhood, and certain of the public duties referred to in the first section of this article, should always be recognized as presenting valid claims for gratuitous services; but neither institutions endowed by the public or by rich individuals, societies for mutual benefit, for the insurance of lives or for analogous purposes, nor any profession or occupation, can be admitted to possess such privilege. Nor can it be justly expected of physicians to furnish certificates of inability to serve on juries, to perform militia duty, or to testify to the state of health of persons wishing to insure their lives, obtain pensions, or the like, without a pecuniary acknowledgment. But to individuals in indigent circumstances, such professional services should always be cheerfully and freely accorded. § 4. It is the duty of physicians, who are frequent witnesses of the enormities committed by quackery, and the injury to health and even destruction of life caused by the use of quack medicines, to enlighten the public on these subjects, to expose the injuries sustained by the unwary from the devices and pretensions of artful empirics and impostors. Physicians ought to use all the influence which they may possess, as professors in Colleges of Pharmacy, and by exercising their option in regard to the shops to which their prescriptions shall be sent, to discourage druggists and apothecaries from vending quack or secret medicines, or from being in any way engaged in their manufacture and sale. ART. II. Obligations of the public to physicians. § 1. The benefits accruing to the public, directly and indirectly, from the active and unwearied beneficence of the profession, are so numerous and important, that physicians are justly entitled to the utmost consideration and respect from the community. The public ought likewise to entertain a just appreciation of medical qualifications; to make a proper discrimination between true science and the assumptions of ignorance and empiricism; to afford every encouragement and facility for the acquisition of medical education-and no longer to allow the statute-books to exhibit the anomaly of exacting knowledge from physicians, under a liability to heavy penalties, and of making them obnoxious to punishment for resorting to the only means of obtaining it. EXPLANATORY DECLARATIONS.1 Dr. Davis reported for a special committee on explanatory declarations concerning the proper interpretation of the Code of Ethics, appointed at the meeting of May, 1884. The committee submitted the following preamble and resolutions : Whereas, Persistent misrepresentations have been and still are being made concerning the provisions of the Code of Ethics of the American Medical Association, which many, even in the Official Record of the American Medical Association, thirty-sixth annual meeting, held in New Orleans, La., April 28, 29, 30, and May 1, 1885. ranks of the profession, are led to believe-as, for instance, that the code excludes persons from professional recognition simply because of difference of opinion on doctrines-therefore, Resolved, First, that Clause I., Article IV., of the National Code of Medical Ethics, is not to be interpreted as excluding from professional fellowship, on the ground of difference in doctrine or belief, those who in other respects are entitled to be members of the regular medical profession. Neither is there any article or clause in the said Code of Ethics that interferes with the most perfect liberty of individual opinion and practice. Second, That it constitutes voluntary disconnection, or withdrawal from the medical profession proper, to assume a title indicating to the public an exclusive or a sectarian system of practice, or to belong to an association or party antagonistic to the general medical profession. Third, That there is no provision in the National Code of Medical Ethics in any wise inconsistent with the broadest dictates of humanity, and that the article of the Code which relates to consultations can not be correctly interpreted as interdicting under any circumstances the rendering of professional services whenever there is pressing or immediate need of them; on the contrary, to meet promptly the emergencies of disease, of accident, and to give a helping hand, without unnecessary delay, is a duty enjoined on every member of the profession both by the letter and spirit of the entire Code. But no such emergencies or circumstances can make it necessary or proper to enter into formal professional consultations with those who voluntarily have disconnected themselves from the regular medical profession in the manner indicated by the preceding resolution. N. S. DAVIS, of Chicago. A. Y. P. GARNETT, of Washington. J. B. MURDOCK, of Pittsburg. On motion of Dr. Brodie, the resolutions were unanimously adopted. On motion of Dr. Keller, it was unanimously agreed that the resolutions be added as an explanatory addendum in all future publications of the Code. PROCEEDINGS. SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NEW YORK STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. HELD AT THE MURRAY HILL HOTEL, IN NEW YORK CITY, November 17, 18, 19, and at the Carnegie Laboratory, November 20, 1885. FIRST DAY, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1885. THE Association was called to order at 9.30 A. M. by the President, Dr. John P. Gray, of Oneida County. The Secretary announced that the registration had proceeded so slowly it would be impossible to announce at the present time the number of attendants present from each District. The report of the Committee of Arrangements was read by the chairman, Dr. John W. S. Gouley, of New York County. page 27.) (See Upon motion of Dr. E. D. Ferguson the report of the Committee of Arrangements was accepted, and the suggestions therein contained were adopted. At the request of the President the Secretary then announced the Committee on Scientific Contributions, as follows: Dr. E. S. F. Arnold, Fifth District, Chairman; Dr. T. M. Flandrau, First District; Dr. J. B. Harvie, Second District; Dr. N. Jacobson, Third District; Dr. Charles G. Stockton, Fourth District. Dr. Ferguson moved the suspension of the order of business only so far as to allow the President's address to succeed the report of the special committees. Carried. The annual report of the Council was then read by Dr. E. D. Ferguson, Secretary of the Council. |