Morning journal and courier., 1881-03-19
] Saturday Morning, March 19. 1881.
THE REGULATION OF MEDICAL PRAC-


 How to best regulate by law the practice of
 medicine is question which has already re-
 ceiyed considerable attention in this country,
 and seems destined to receive much more.
 In view of the fact that the matter is now
 before the Legislature of this State. the paper by Dr. Ernest W. Gushing in the April In-
 tera0tSona1, giving clear and comprehensive
 statement of the reasons why the practice of
 medicine should be regulated by law, the diff
 ficulties in the way of securing the desired legislation, and what has already been &C., complished in this direction in this and other countries, seems especially interesting and timely.
 Different systems have been tried in differ ent countries and States for examining and licensing practitioners. and different degrees of severity in dealing with quacks have hsen tried. In England, the latter are disqualified only from using the title doctor" In Illl- nois an enormous license fee, amounting to practical prohibition, is charged. In France, @ governmental board of examiners exists from whom practitioner must get license, which is obtained with greater difficulty than diploma. In England registrar merely promulgates the names of those who are graduated from any one of nineteen institutions which the government recog- nizes; and only such graduates may call themselves doctors, become surgeons in the army navy, serve 8 passenger ship, or hold responsible place in a hospital or workhouse. New York first provided that county medical societies might appoint cen sors to examine and license persons having no diplomas. This weak arrangement utterly failed. Now the boards of examiners are ap- pointed by the regents of the university" who are really State commissioners of educa- ton. The applicant must have diploma either from respectable New York State medical college or one endorsed by New York college, and must furthermore be ex- amined according to the doctrines of which l ever of the medical bodies he prefers. There, as elsewhere, homeopathic are ''rec- ognized." New York allows any person who ! has practiced ten years without diploma to | continue two years more, during which time ! he must attend medical college; if at the | end of that time he has diploma, he must ! abandon the profession. New Hampshire and | some other States allow the revocation of l ' or for 'sunprofessional conduct.' Some | States include dentistry and pharmacy in the | scope of their examination and license system. | Dr. Cushing thinks the Texas system of ex- amining boards, appointed by the district l courts, and prohibited from discriminating l against any school of therapeutics, is the best | that could be adopted Of course there l should be an annual publication of the names of icentiates, and arrangements made for i- censing physicians of other States living close to the border, in addition to other pro- visions.
 Three principal obstacles to this form of legislation are mentioned. One is the lack of harmony between the three schools of medicine, regular. homeopathic and eclec- tic although they have been found to agree upon the desirability of doing away with the quacks and nostrums which infest society, | and in many States are coming to cooperate heartily in this movement Indeed, pr. Cushing says that the most effective statutes are those which have required the support of all three schools. Another difficulty hitherto has been the different standards of the vari- ous medical colleges of good character. It is impossible to equalize the conditions under which doctors shall be licensed if any one college be taken as the standard. But MT. l Eaton, the United States commissioner of ed- ucation, has made up accurate list of the bona tide and reputable colleges, as to de- termine whose diplomas are good for any thing and this will make fair basis of l agreement. Those rascally institutions which sell diplomas to incompetent persons have been carefully noted and put under the ban. The third obstacle enumerated by Dr. Cushing is the opposition of spiritualists, magnetic rubbers and all others who claimsto heal by called ''supernaturar' means. These people secretly consulted by some of our most educated and influential people, and are able to array large clientage against 8 law such as is here proposed.
 Dr. Cushing finds that wherever carefully legislation on this subject has gone in- to effect it has resulted in numerous conyic- lions and wholesome migration of quacks. If this effect can be produced in Connecticut the quicker it is done the better.