to duty. The Civil War had been over but a few years when many of the physicians who had served with distinction met once more to fight common foes-disease and death. These gallant non-combatants in war had returned home wrecked in fortune, their State impoverished, and the cause which impelled thousands of the sons of the South to take up arms-lost! On battlefields, while engines of war hurled their missiles of death and destruction, and men were falling dying and wounded, the physicians who met here in 1853, and in Houston in 1869, were ever found where duty called them— in the midst of the thickest of the fight, bent upon errands of mercy, relieving suffering and nursing back to life friend and foe. There are physicians present who organized the Association in 1869 to grace this meeting. They did not allow misfortune to interfere with their devotion to the best interests of society. Perhaps hardships were entailed upon some in attending the annual meetings, yet to do so they willingly sacrificed time and money. With such men as the conservators of this Association, how could aught but good result to the public and the profession, and the Association prosper beyond the most sanguine expectations?

Since its organization in 1869 the Association has steadily increased in membership, importance, and influence, and the benefits that it has been instrumental in securing for the public and the profession can no longer be doubted, even by the most skeptical.

It was found that the independent plan under which the district and county societies throughout this State were operating,-they were independent, and owed no allegiance to the State Association, was not unifying the profession. It was decided at the meeting held in San Antonio (1903) to organize the Association on the plan recommended by the American Medical Association, viz. by creating a county society in each county, and, in sparsely settled counties, by hyphenating two or more counties to form a society. The county society being the unit of organization, with but one chartered society in a county. Membership in the county society constituting membership in the State Association. Thus the county society guards the portals of entrance to the district,

State and National associations. It is the most important branch of the organization, as the county society must pass upon the qualifications of the members of the State and National associations.

The broad and liberal plan of the State Medical Association makes it possible for any qualified physician who does not practice, or claim to practice, a sectarian system of medicine to become a member of the county, district, State and National associations; and those remaining aloof from uniting with their colleagues do so either from stubbornness or animosity towards individual com、 petitors. It is not the intention now, or has it ever been, for members of our profession to be coerced into uniting with medical organizations, but "in union there is strength," and by being a united profession, we will be better able to secure medical legislation, and thereby conserve the best interests of society, and to become more efficient within ourselves, and better prepared to obtain knowledge and bestow it upon those who trust us to cure and prevent diseases. By being united we can raise the standard. of our profession to that high plane which its honorable history, traditions and usefulness justly entitle it. Many who formerly practiced a sectarian system of medicine have renounced it, and joined the regular medical profession, and have become zealous members of our medical societies. To them the cold shoulder of non-fraternalism has been exchanged for the strong hand-grasp of fellowship. Our calling is humanitarian and merciful, and physicians should be broad minded and discard everything that has the slightest resemblance to littleness, and fight bravely for the upbuilding of the profession that it may reflect honor upon us,— a profession whose good deeds can not be numbered, but so bestowed as to be held in everlasting remembrance and undying appreciation by a grateful people.

Medical Legislation. Of the measures presented to the Legis lature for its consideration, there are none more important than those appertaining to medical legislation and none more difficult to secure into enactments. All matters of medical legislation concern the best interests of our citizens, because they directly affect

human life and commerce. The failures in the past in obtaining laws we advocated were principally due to the opposition of those who, for selfish reasons, were instrumental in defeating them, to a misunderstanding on the part of legislators of their real importance, and to a lack of concerted action on behalf of the members of our profession. Hence when laws were sought we were un-united, and had no solid phalanx fighting for them, though advocated by our State Medical Association. The majority of the profession did not lend their best endeavors in this direction, but left the burden to be carried by a few. In future far more interest will be displayed in getting laws. The constitution of our Association provides for three members on Legislation and Public Health in each county society, also for the State Medical Association Committee on Legislation and Public Policy, and besides these, there is the Legislative Committee of the American Medical Association. From now on, any legislation we advocate, State or National, will receive the influence of the county, State, and National associations.

It is, indeed, difficult for the ordinary mind to understand why enactments should be sought for the protection of the public, which are apparently directly against the best interests of our profession. Our foremost duty as physicians is to prevent disease whenever and wherever we can, this being the most direct way by which we can serve God and our fellowmen. Our efforts in behalf of society are becoming better understood and appreciated, and the day may come when the measures our profession advocate will receive the consideration and cordial support of the legislative bodies throughout the length and breadth of this land. It will always be the policy of the State Medical Association and the medical profession to advocate, recommend, and use their influence in conserving the best interests of the people, but never for individual aggrandizement or for selfish purposes. To illustrate the difficulties in securing medical legislation, I will point to the fact that from 1853 to 1901, our profession endeavored repeatedly to secure a law to prevent the indiscriminate practice of medicine by

unworthy and unqualified persons. In 1853 a bill for this purpose was introduced in the Lower House by Colonel Fields, of Liberty. It failed to pass. Time and again bills were introduced for creating a State Board of Medical Examiners, and were unsuccessful, and it was not until 1901 that the present law was enacted.

The law regulating the practice of medicine, prior to the existing one, when district medical boards were created by district judges, was the means of allowing hundreds of men with absolutely no knowledge of medicine to be turned loose upon the community to engage in the great and responsible calling of caring for human life. Under this lax law the bogus diploma business was such a money-making enterprise that mills began to grind out doctors in six weeks' time. Some of these mills were operating under a charter of the State of Texas, and the graduates of these schools were equal, under the law, to the graduates of the Medical Department of the University of Texas, which requires an attendance of four years on lectures. Its competitors had no fixed curriculum, but were ready to confer the degree of M. D. upon any one who would pay fifty dollars, regardless of race, sex, or color. The outrage that was being perpetrated upon the public by one of these institutions, the New York Medical College of San Antonio, whose faculty consisted of a doctor, his wife, and six-year-old child, and a number of professors who signed M. D. after their names and were not physicians, but professors of medicine, was, through the influence of the West Texas Medical Society, brought to the attention of Governor Sayers. He manifested a deep interest in the matter and advised with the Attorney General regarding the squelching of the bogus concern. The only way that this could be done was to prove an abuse of the privileges of the charter. A colored man matriculated in the school, and in six weeks' time was made a fullfledged M. D. with all the rights to practice medicine as herein set forth in this diploma. It is a beautiful piece of lithographic work, but like many of its kind, of no value. I simply show it to prove that a diploma can not be relied upon to bespeak merit, therefore the wisdom of the present law, which does not recognize a diploma

as a sufficient requisite for the practice of medicine. One shudders to think of life intrusted to incompetent and unscrupulous persons.

The present law makes the State Medical Association responsible for the Board of Medical Examiners. Every two years eighteen members are selected by the Association, and nine of these are appointed by the Governor to form the Board. Since its enactment three years ago 381 have been examined and 303 passed and 78 failed. It has been instrumental in keeping out numbers of incompetent men from practicing upon the ignorance and credulity of the people, for revenue only, and also of raising the standard of teaching. Unquestionably the present far excels all previous laws regulating the practice of medicine, but it is still defective, in as much as it allows the public to be imposed upon by the so-called "drugless doctors." Experience has shown that these are quackcure frauds and humbugs. They are not required to pass an examination of any kind, while those who practice legitimate medicine must, and rightfully so, pass an examination before one of the three State Boards of Medical Examiners, regardless of the school from which they graduated. This State allows those who are credulous to be imposed upon by the mind curer, faith curer, mental-science curer, metaphysical healer, Christian Science curer with its absent treatment, hypnotists, enchanters, alchemists, astrologers, magicians, sooth-sayers, telepaths, divine healers, and osteopaths, all claiming to possess miraculous gifts in curing disease. It is to be regretted that the press, the exponent of the times, the molder of public opinion, the greatest educator by far that the world possesses, will lend itself, for the dollars and cents revenue derived therefrom, to the publication and dissemination of the rankest and most fraudulent advertisements of these cure fakirs that can possibly be expressed in language. There are persons foolish enough to be gulled by fortune tellers and made to give up gold and jewels to be "magnetized," and fleeced out of them. Is it then surprising that those suffering from real or imaginary ills, who are easily influenced by the untruthful claims of these wonderful healers, should patronize them? It is not the pity one feels for those who