CHAPTER III.

OF THE DUTIES OF THE PROFESSION TO THE PUBLIC, AND OF THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE PUBLIC

TO THE PROFESSION.

ARTICLE 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 poison 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 post-mortem examination, it is just, in consequence of the time, labor and skill required, and the responsi

bility 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 limit 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 also 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 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.

ARTICLE II.

OBLIGATIONS OF THE PUBLIC TO PHYSICIANS.

§ 1. The benefits accruing to the public, directly or 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 assumption 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.

Resolved, That this Association recognize Specialties as proper and legitimate fields of practice.

Resolved, That Specialties shall be governed by the same rules of professional etiquette as have been laid down for general practitioners.

Resolved, That it shall not be proper for the Specialists publicly to advertise themselves as such, or assume any title not specially granted by a regularly chartered college.

ROLL OF MEMBERS

OF THE

Medical Association of Georgia.

1897.

ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY.

ABBREVIATIONS-P., President; V.-P., Vice-President; S., Secretary; C. S., Corresponding Secretary; T., Treasurer; O., Orator; C., Censor; indicating the offices the members hold or have held. Members are particularly requested to notify the Secretary promptly on making any changes in their post-offices.

The Secretary will esteem it a favor if any member will write him at once on noticing any inaccuracy or omission in the roll.