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 perform- . ance 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.

PROCEEDINGS.

FIRST ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

NEW YORK STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

HELD AT THE MURRAY HILL HOTEL, IN NEW YORK CITY,

November 18, 19 and 20, 1884.

FIRST DAY, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1884.-MORNING SESSION. THE Association was called to order at 9.45 A. м., by Dr. J. W. S. Gouley, of New York County, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements. The Corresponding Secretary, Dr. E. D. Ferguson, of Rensselaer County, acting as Recording Secretary, in the absence of Dr. Caleb Green, of Cortland County, announced the number of Fellows registered up to the time of the meeting.

Dr. Gouley then welcomed the Association to New York City, and read the report of the Committee of Arrangements. (See page 15.)

The President, Dr. H. D. Didama, of Onondaga County, then took the chair and delivered his annual address. (See page 19.)

At the close of his address, the President announced the Committee on Scientific Contributions, as follows: Dr. E. S. F. Arnold, of New York County; Dr. Simeon T. Clark, of Niagara County; Dr. William Gillis, of Franklin County; Dr. George W. Avery, of Chenango County; Dr. J. C. Hannon, of Rensselaer County.

The Secretary then read, as the report of the Council, the min

utes of its Proceedings. (See proceedings of the Council, pages 541 and 610.)

On motion of Dr. E. S. F. Arnold, of New York County, the report of the Council was received and adopted.

Delegates from the State Medical Societies of Vermont, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, were introduced to the Association by the President. Drs. Wile, of Connecticut, Shoemaker, of Pennsylvania, and Clark, of Vermont, responded to the introduction, congratulating the Association upon the auspicious opening of its first annual session.

The Treasurer, Dr. J. H. Hinton, of New York County, then made the following report:

NEW YORK, November 17, 1884. The Treasurer of the New York State Medical Association begs leave to make the following report for the period from February 6, 1884, to date:

292 initiation-fees....

Receipts.

$1,460.00

On motion, Dr. S. S. Purple, of New York County, Dr. C. C. Wyckoff, of Erie County, and Dr. J. G. Orton, of Broome County, were appointed a committee to audit the accounts of the Treas

urer.

Dr. E. M. Moore then delivered the address on Surgery. (See page 33.)

Dr. J. W. S. Gouley read the following report of the special committee, appointed by the Council, on the organization of Branch Associations:

MR. PRESIDENT: In accordance with the instructions received from the Council, your committee has the honor to report that the

question of organizing District Medical Associations as branches of our State Association has been carefully studied; that the opinions of a number of Fellows residing in the several Districts have been solicited and obtained; that these gentlemen are all in favor of the immediate formation of one Branch Association in each of the five Districts; and that a plan of organization has been prepared. Your committee, therefore, has to present the following plan, for the consideration of the Association:

PLAN OF ORGANIZATION OF FIVE BRANCHES OF THE NEW YORK STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

SECTION 1.-Organization.

THERE shall be organized, on the third Thursday in the month of November, 1884, five District Medical Associations, as branches of the New York State Medical Association, whose objects shall be the same as those of the parent Association.

SECTION 2.-Designation.

The Branch Associations shall be designated, respectively, as the FIRST, OR NORTHERN BRANCH; the SECOND, OR EASTERN BRANCH; the THIRD, OR CENTRAL BRANCH; the Fourth, or WESTERN BRANCH; and the FIFTH, OR SOUTHERN BRANCH of the NEW YORK STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

SECTION 3.-Counties in each Branch.

The Counties included in each Branch of the New York State Medical Association shall be the following:

1

First, or Northern Branch.

Clinton, 30; Essex, 22; Franklin, 16; Hamilton, —; Herkimer, 29; Jefferson, 30; Lewis, 14; Oneida, 58; Oswego, 22; St. Lawrence, 13; Warren, 18. Total.........

252

1 The figures following each County show the number of those in the County, upon whose applications for Fellowship the Council is now authorized to act.