ARTICLE VI.

DELEGATES.

SECT. 1. The delegates to the American Medical Association and to the several State societies shall report briefly, in writing, such items of general interest as may have claimed the attention of the bodies to which they were respectively delegated.

SECT. 2. Should any representative from this Society to a sister society, or to the American Medical Association, find that he shall not be able to attend to the duties of his appointment, he shall, in due time, notify the President of this Society, who, in conjunction with the Censors of the district to which the representative belongs, shall appoint some member to supply his place.

ARTICLE VII.

OF THE ORDER OF BUSINESS.

1. The President, or, in his absence, one of the Vice-Presidents, shall call to order; or, in case of the absence of all these officers, a chairman shall be appointed pro tempore.

2. The report of the Committee of Arrangements and Credentials. 3. Calling the roll.

4. President's address.

5. Reading the minutes.

6. Any business which requires early consideration may, by permission, be introduced.

7. Report of the Standing Committee.

8. Reports from the county societies.

9. The correspondence shall be read by the Corresponding Secretary.

10. Reports from the Delegates to the American Medical Association and State societies.

11. Written communications on medical subjects may be read and discussed.

12. Oral communications may be made and discussed.

13. Resolutions introducing new business.

14. The selection of a place for the next meeting of the Society. 15. Election of officers.

16. Unfinished and miscellaneous business.

17. Adjournment.

ARTICLE VIII.

PROVISIONS FOR AMENDMENTS.

Every proposal for altering or amending these By-Laws shall be made in writing; and if such alteration or amendment receive the unanimous vote of the members present, it shall be adopted; but if objections be made, the alteration or amendment shall lie over until the next annual meeting, when, if it receive the vote of twothirds of the voters present, it shall be adopted.

STANDING RESOLUTIONS.

The Society ordered fifty copies of the Transactions, over the number requisite for distribution by the Society, to be published. (Vide Transactions for 1863, p. 174.)

Resolved, That the members of this Society deem it unadvisable to send their students to schools whose teachers do not become members of a county society. (Vide Transactions for 1866, page 18.)

Resolved, That this Society earnestly recommends to the county societies the annual registration of all the regular practitioners of the State, and that the names and residences of such practitioners, with the names of the schools in which they may have graduated and the date of their diplomas, be annually reported to the President of the Society on or before the first day of each new year, in order that the same may be reported by him at each annual meeting. (Vide Transactions for 1869, page 275.)

Whereas, The meetings of this Society are a cause of great trouble and expense to the physicians of the place where they are held, therefore,

Resolved, That hereafter all public entertainments on their part be dispensed with, and that instead thereof there shall be an annual dinner, towards the payment of which each member subscribing to it shall contribute an equal sum. (Vide Transactions for 1870, page 23.)

Resolved, That this provision is not designed to conflict in any manner with the acceptance on the part of the Society of private entertainments by physicians and citizens of the place of meeting. (Ibid.)

Resolved, That the Committee be instructed to omit from the roll

of permanent members, according to the Constitution, all names in regard to which they have satisfactory evidence that they are no longer retained on the roll of members of the county society from which they were originally delegated, or through which they obtained their permanent membership in this Society. (Vide Transactions for 1870, page 26.)

Resolved, That the Committee be also instructed to print hereafter, for convenient reference, the names of the officers and members of all the county societies, together, at the end of each number of the Transactions, in alphabetical order, the officers of said societies to be designated by their appropriate initials. (Ibid.)

Resolved, That in order that the Transactions may serve more fully as a directory for learning the names and residences of the respectable practitioners in the counties in which county organizations exist, the societies be again urged to carry out more faithfully the law of this Society, requiring each county society to furnish annually for publication a correct list of its officers and members.

Resolved, That since many numbers of the Transactions are entirely out of print, the Permanent Secretary and Treasurer be authorized to exchange any numbers of the Transactions of which there are on hand more than five copies for any number of which the Society has none. (Ibid.)

Resolved, That in the future a committee of three on unfinished business shall be appointed at the beginning of each annual session. (Vide Transactions for 1873, page 31.)

Resolved, That the Committee on Hygiene be and are hereby authorized to draw on the Secretary for copies of the Transactions for the year during which he holds his appointment, and to distribute the same to State Boards of Health, Boards of Health of large cities, the American Public Health Association, and other important sanitary bodies in this country and in Europe, with the request that they will furnish this Society their own Transactions in exchange. (Vide Transactions for 1874, page 470.)

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.

§ 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, as to inspire the minds of their patients with gratitude, respect, and confidence. § 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.