of being unreliable, and mix up our records. It is in accordance with the motion just carried here that we should correct our records. It is in accordance with the past history of this Institute in 1866 or '67 that a man came before the Institute and wanted his connection with the Institute antedated three years. He had sent, at the very beginning, his application for membership; it had been mislaid or kept in the pocket of one of the officers of the Institute, who had forgotten to present it; this man was elected in 1847, and his application was not antedated. He said it was no fault of his that the application rested so long in the hands of a negligent official; it was the fault of the Institute that he was not sooner elected, and he demanded that he should be considered one of the members of the Institute for an earlier date than that upon which his application had been ultimately received and acted on by the Institute. But the Institute voted unanimously that his date should not be changed. The case before us now is one that came clearly before the Institute. I was myself then actively interested. It came to the Institute in 1873 at Cleveland with a diploma from a college which was then in doubt, and which very soon afterwards ceased its existence. Now, I cannot say how old the young man was at that time; but he refuses to tell me how old he is to-day; but my impression is that he was not 21 years old; that he was 20; and I advised him in a friendly way never to let a bit of suspicion or a blot rest upon his title of doctor of medicine; that he was young, and that he should take another course in some college and receive a diploma from an institution that there could be no doubt about. He did that. He did it nobly and well, and his diploma now can have no question about it. He didn't apply again for eleven years; he doesn't come in on his first application; but eleven years afterwards he made a new application and was elected to membership in 1884. Now, he comes to us and asks us-I won't say with undue activity-he asks us to antedate or change our record to make him hereafter as of date 1873. I cannot believe that this Institute will take such a step to throw a doubt upon all its records, as this act would unquestionably do.

DR. FISHER: It may seem a little personal to present my own side of the case. I had not intended speaking on the question, but the injustice that has been done me by the last speaker is too great to permit my keeping silent. I want to explain the situation. I want nothing but justice. This Institute has honored me repeatedly

and I ask no favors other than those that belong of right to me and to every member. And I beg that when a vote is taken upon this question, the "personal equation" be not considered. The facts are these. In 1872 I was graduated from the Detroit Homœopathic College, which suspended its labors when the Ann Arbor University was established. In 1873, whether 15 or 40 years old, I was old enough to satisfy my constituents, and I went to Cleveland from Kansas as a delegate from the Kansas State Homœopathic Society to the American Institute. It was a revolutionary session. One of the professors in the Detroit College was an advertiser. There are some of the honored members of the Institute who were at that time in the same line. This college on the lake meant a fight with the college on the river, and hence my application in the city of the college by the lake was held in abeyance, because I was a graduate of the college on the river. My application for that reason was laid on the table until the status of the college on the river should be established to the satisfaction of the college on the lake. In 1874 this Institute elected a member of the Detroit college to membership. My application was not acted on,―was not taken from the table by the Institute through no fault of my own; it was clearly a case of sacrificing an applicant of a rival college. It should have been taken up; it lay there for eleven years. I was at a point so remote from the meetings of this Institute; I was in feeble health; I had gone to the frontier; and I have no apology to make for not having been able financially for eleven years to get back to the Institute. I took my second graduation at Pulte College. I am proud of her. But I say that my membership should have begun from the time that I first applied, and the application. should have been taken from the table as soon as I had complied with the request of the Institute's committee, and it was not right to date me from my later application. In 1875, this same objectionable professor, Dr. Spinney, who had caused the Detroit college to be regarded with disfavor, was an applicant for and was elected a member of the Institute. I did not ask the Institute to antedate my application, because the status of the college was not defined until some years later. This does not falsify the records. It corrects a palpable error. If the Institute failed to take up the application through oversight of its constituted officers, it is always right to correct its errors; and your Board of Censors, to whom you have

entrusted this matter, have carefully investigated the claim I make and have recommended that it be allowed. I want to go on the record where I belong, which is in 1874. This Institute does not care to know the hundreds of dollars I have spent and the thousands of miles I have travelled to have this wrong righted.

DR. COMSTOCK: Dr. Fisher is an honor to us; but we must not falsify our records to favor Dr. Fisher. We don't wish to do any injustice to Dr. Fisher; but the law is the law, and I hope that there it will stand.

DR. DUDLEY: I don't quite agree with the last speaker nor with Dr. Talbot. They say we must not falsify the record. Why not? If our records are wrong, correct them. People say if we have a rule, live up to that rule. The rule knows nothing; the man who makes the rule is the power. Rules furnish no warrant for an injustice. Dr. Fisher's original application has never been disposed of. It is still before this body. Dr. Fisher ought not to have made application a second time for membership; it was a mistake to do it. That is where his record went wrong. The original application ought to have been taken from the table when the second application was made, if it had not before been taken up; and this Institute should not have put the onus of that mistake upon Dr. Fisher. I believe in putting the responsibility of that act where it belongs,—upon us, not upon him. I don't like to falsify records either; but I would far rather falsify the record than be guilty of an injustice.

DR. TALBOT: If an application is laid upon the table, and afterwards acted on, do we date the membership back to the time of the original application? Would this not be an ex post facto proceeding?

DR. DUDLEY: We have thus antedated a membership twice since I have been Secretary.

Dr. KINNE: It is perfectly legitimate and has been done over and over again in my positive knowledge of the history of this Institute; where action has been deferred and taken up later, it has been dated back to the original status of the cause. It was only laid upon the table until a certain act could be performed, with which act Dr. Fisher had nothing to do. It was through no fault of his that the college was in doubt at the time.

The Censors' recommendation was then adopted.

On behalf of the Board of Censors, Dr. C. B. Kinyon began the

reading of a further list of applicants for membership. Dr. Henry M. Smith raised the point of order that the list could not be received because the names were not arranged alphabetically, as required by a rule adopted on the previous day. The Chair decided the point of order well taken.

THE REPORT of the COMMITTEE ON THE HAHNEMANN

MONUMENT.

was presented verbally by Dr. Henry M. Smith, of New York, N. Y. Dr. Smith said:

care.

I am sorry that we have to hurry this matter through; it is so important that it ought to be considered at length and with great The interest in this matter, which has grown beyond our anticipations, justified the asking on our part of an hour set apart, in which we could consider it fully. In brief, I undertook to learn, a few nights ago, what we, as a committee, had done; but I cannot, in the time allotted me this morning, amplify my report so as to include even a major part of our report-which should include a sketch of the movement. Fortunately, the journals of our school have taken kindly to the movement and have published it far and wide, informing the profession generally of what has been done. I desire to state briefly that the movement, started in Washington last year, has outgrown the eleven members of the Institute; also that State committees have been appointed in many of the States; that committees of other local and district societies have been in correspondence with your committee, asking to be instructed in the plan of our movement. Other societies have said that they, too, would appoint committees when their regular meetings would be held. We encouraged this appointment of State and local and other societies' committees, because we desired to interest the physicians in those States and districts, and have them feel that their own friends were actively engaged in it; and also that, through them, we should be able to come in touch with a greater number of the public. We desire, of course, that each State shall take charge of the matter of pushing it and raising the funds as it sees fit; using whatever methods it may desire. We want to call, through them, public opinion and public attention through the public press. This is an era, as you know, of monuments. We are advertising the United States of America; we are advertising our friends and our manufactories;

and it is a time when we should give her medical belief a front place, and bring it to the public notice with no uncertain sound. We want to be the first in the field to erect a monument in Washington-that city of monuments-to a physician. We undertook in New York to get an article published in some of the monthly periodicals whereby we could excite some interest in the subject of Homœopathy and in the life of Hahnemann; we had difficulty in doing so. Behind every magazine there was some medical man, and anything connected with medicine was referred to him, who, in the large majority of cases, was an Old-School doctor. We thought if we could get hold of some journalist of known reputation, anything over his signature would be taken by the journals; but we found the journals would have naught to do with the subject, no matter over whose signature. We have learned, however, that the Journal of American History, for some reason, made application for a history of Homœopathy, and that they have it in preparation,-a series of three articles, with a sketch of the life of Hahnemann. It is not necessary to go into any detail or any sketch of Hahnemann, but since I have been to this meeting a number of gentlemen have asked me where they could get a sketch of Hahnemann's life. Johnson's Encyclopædia had one sketch of him; it was written by an Old-School doctor, and they threw it aside; but in preparing their biographical dictionary, they asked me if I knew where they could get a sketch of Hahnemann. In regard to the contract, we have held the matter in abeyance. The editor of the New York Herald said: "We will give you all the notice you want, if you can catch me in; if you can get my ear. We will do anything for you; we will give you any size notice; but don't make any noise about it until you are ready to have it done. Don't let it be stale when you come to me with it." So you see we have the promise of a strong friend by-and-by.

We have taken subscriptions of any amounts that the subscribers are willing to give. So far we have received about $5000, of which some is paid, and deposited in the Knickerbocker Trust Company, where it is drawing interest. Instead of soliciting, the societies have written us, asking whether we had any plan to propose; thereupon we sent out a circular which most of you have already received. In addition to this we have small subscription blanks, which I will gladly furnish to you.