or even base ball. Medical associations are the great stimulating factors for encouraging research and study, and he who attends even his local society receives a fresh impulse to study and goes back to his work with renewed vigor and a determination to rub off the rust which has made his mental joints creak, and which is sure to cripple the man who remains isolated from his fellows engaged in the same studies. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." Contact with kindred minds in all walks of life acts as oil to the machinery, it prevents friction and increases its usefulness and power. He who is not willing or anxious to join his confreres in deliberation over scientific medical topics becomes selfish and narrow. His horizon becomes smaller as years pass by and he seldom keeps abreast of the times in his reading. Many a bright man of great natural ability has completely sunk out of sight through his refusal to join his brothers in the healing profession, to confer on matters relating to the advancement of medical science and alleviating suffering. Many persons never joined medical societies from a mistaken idea regarding those gatherings. They consider a medical society as a gathering of a few scheming persons for their own self-aggrandizement and selflaudation and so refuse to unite themselves to the society and remain as isolated atoms, growing more selfish as the years pass by. Others after attending one or two meetings remain away because their pet theory was not adopted by their brothers. These classes have really no place in the medical profession and should never have entered its sacred ranks. He alone is entitled to enter the ranks of the most sacred and holy of all professions, who, with uplifted hand, and with a full understanding of what that means, after mature study, takes the oath to devote his life to the sacred calling of alleviating suffering and to give all the powers of mind and body unreservedly to the task. This means that in all walks of life and in his contact with his fellows that he is to be a gentleman, which means that he shall be a clean man in everything which pertains to his life, for to his sacred keeping is confided all the soul jewels of those who employ him and give

him their confidence. This is a great responsibility. That medical societies were regarded of the greatest importance to the people at large and that a high degree of education was necessary for the proper application of scientific medicine was early recognized by the founders of our much- prized commonwealth. As early as 1819 those empowered to make laws for the Territory of Michigan placed upon the statute book a law creating state and county medical societies with rules. governing the powers and functions of these societies.

On June 14, 1819, an act was placed on the statutes of Michigan entitled "An act to incorporate medical societies for the purpose of regulating the practice of medicine and surgery in the Territory of Michigan." This was signed by Gov. Lewis Cass and Judges A. B. Woodward and John Griffin.

This act enabled any four regular physicians and surgeons to unite together after a full call to the profession of the Territory to form a territorial society with secretary and president. It also enabled any four physicians and surgeons to organize a county medical society, and to elect president and secretary.

The territorial society after organization was to file with the secretary of the territory a copy of proceedings and a list of members; the secretary of the county society to file with county clerk a copy of proceedings and list of members. The day of first meeting was to be the anniversary day of the society for all time.

These societies were empowered to hold a certain amount of property. County societies were to appoint censors, three to five, with power to examine all applicants to practice medicine in the territory, or the examinations might be conducted by the whole county society and diplomas given to those passing the examinations. If any one was refused a diploma after being examined, he might appeal to the territorial society or come up again for re-examination in six months. Three years of study was demanded of all applicants, and as medical schools were not so numerous then as now and most of the teaching was done by the preceptor, it

was necessary for him to file with the county clerk a statement of name and age as well as scholastic knowledge of his student when he commenced study. No one was allowed tɔ practice medicine unless he had a diploma and was a member of a medical society. Regular medical men from the adjoining states might practice in the territory. The board of censors or the medical society could suspend the right to practice upon charges of unfitness being proven. Each physician was to pay $3.00 each year for a medical library, and a fee of $10.00 for examination for diploma was required.

This law was re-enacted in 1827, and when Michigan was admitted into the Union it was retained on her statutes. It was again sanctioned in 1846 by the act revising the statutes of Michigan, the work of the late distinguished Judge Sanford M. Green. It was repealed in 1850, and the state went out of the business of protecting its people against quackery and ignorance. There are some of the old graduates of the boards of censors of the territorial, state and county boards still practicing in the state of Michigan, and those of them with whom it has been my good fortune to be acquainted were a credit to that early effort to regulate medicine for the welfare of the people of the territory at large, and likewise to the great profession to which they belonged.

Since that time no medical legislation of any practical protective value to the people of the state has been placed upon the statutes of the Wolverine state. Many attempts have been made to place a safeguard between the people and those who would prey on their ignorance and credulity, but so far no success has crowned the effort and to-day our fair commonwealth is the dumping ground of all the bordering states for their quacks and charlatans. The people are not educated to the point of realizing the great necessity for such protection. This was fully exemplified in the action of the legislature at Lansing last week. I have watched and assisted in a small way for the past twenty years all efforts to protect the people of the state from ignorance and superstition, but so far we seem to be as far removed from success

as we were twenty years ago in effective legislative protection.

There are other fields in which the medical profession must alone be the educators. The enormous crime of prenatal murder of the products of conception has attained such proportions as to threaten the very existence of the American people in many communities. The suffering and the moral degradation of those who regularly submit to have their unborn children murdered render them unfit to become the fathers and mothers of a prospering and healthy people. There are people who hold up their hands in holy horror when told of the sacrifice of babies to the sacred Ganges who look on complacently at the constant destruction of the lives of the unborn innocents in their own christian land.

This is one of the greatest sins of the American people and one which in the near future will produce fruit of the deepest moral degradation in those born of parentage so deeply tainted with crime? The members of the medical profession alone can cope with it. They alone can show this crime in its true light to those who apply to them for assistance, either to commit the crime, or, more frequently, to save their lives after the crime has been committed.

Another of the fields where we can do a great good is in the proper instruction of our clientele regarding the evil consequences arising from sexual diseases. Gonorrhoea and syphilis are certainly more common in rural districts than they were a quarter of a century ago, and the serious consequences to the young wife of an old gonorrhoea in the husband may, and often does, cripple her whole after life and she never knows the cause of her suffering. A single case of syphilis in a rural community may give rise to a widely spread epidemic among innocents. I have had under treatment at one time nine patients from one village, all the victims of syphilis arising from the introduction of the plague by a courtesan on a short visit to the place. The wives of some of the men infected do not know either the nature of their malady nor the source. Education in this direction is much needed.

Advancement in the diagnosis and treatment of disease is progressing along experimental lines. A wide field has been opened for serum-therapy both in diagnosis of disease and as a curative agent. The serum-therapy in the treatment of diphtheria has gained a strong place and all indications show that it is a great addition to former methods of treatment. Koch has again brought forward a complex combination of tuberculin and an extract of bacilli to render the individual immune to the ravages of phthisis. His work in Africa to rid that country of rinderpest has not as yet proved successful.

In the treatment of cholera no advance has been made. Of thirty-nine cases at Colombo, Ceylon, last December, thirty-seven proved fatal, but the disease was confined to one. small part of the city.

Another fearful epidemic of bubonic plague has startled the world during the past year and still its ravages continue. It was supposed that this monster which has proven itself too strong for medical control in former times had been banished and that we had no reason to fear his presence again. Three years ago this condition of safety received a rude awakening to real danger when the plague made its appearance in Hong Kong and swept away a large percentage of its Chinese population. People fled to Canton and Macao carrying the plague. with them and 50,000 died at Canton and 6,000 at Macao, a city of about 100,000 people. The mortality at Hong Kong was difficult to estimate. The British soldiers used at Hong Kong as a sanitary corps and the European crews of the steamers plying between Hong Kong and Canton escaped the contagion. Only two of the soldiers died of plague although for months engaged in cleaning the infected houses. No one on the steamers contracted the disease although as many as twenty dead bodies were often found among the Chinese refugees when Canton was reached. Dr. Yersin of the Pasteur Institute and Dr. Kitasato of Tokio simultaneously discovered the bacillus of plague. Dr. Yersin prepared at that time a serum for the treatment of the disease, but on his return plague had disappeared from Hong Kong and he went to Canton, and as the Chinese refused his treatment he went to