Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-06-17
THE CODE OF MEDICAL ETHICS,
Views of Medical Men on the Action of
the American Medical AssOcia-
tiOn-Press Comments.
Baltimore Sun.

The action of the American Medi.
cal Association in session at st. Paul,
Mimi, last week, in disfellowshiping
the New York society and sending
back its delegates is attracting cons
siderable attention. The reason
assigned for this rigorous treatment
was the adoption of revised code
by the New York doctors
last winter, one of the provisions
of which allowed members of the
regular profession to consult with
homeopathists. Commenting ON this
subject, DR.. Montrose Pallen, OF
New York, an expert in obstetrics
gyn@cology, with long experience in
surgery and the epautics, is quoted
as saying: There are homeopathic
physicians in this city who are as
thoroughly trained in the science as
practitioners of the regular school,
who are gentlemen i4 culture and
| manners, honorable in their conduct,
and refined and cultivated in their
social relations. Ain to say to such
men that will not respond to a re,
quest for my judgment in case sim
ply because an Anticipated custom
forblds regular practi toner's to RESI-
pond under such circumstances"
On the other hand, Dr. Frank FL.
Hamilton, also a physician and sur.
geon of hign standing, and one of
the late President Gartield's attend
ing physicians, takes the opposite
view, and he and others who hold
the same position, assume that it is
impossible for the "regulars and
the homeopaths to consult together
probably so long as the latter adj
here to the dogma of "like cures
like"
The views OF DIR. Henry J. Bige-
low, who has just resigned the pro
censorship Of surgery in Harvard
Medical School after thirty-three
years connection with that trst-class
institution, are interesting in this
matter. The homeopathy of Hahne-
man, he declares, exists here only in
name. Modern homeopathy is gen
eral y much like other medical prac-
tice, really doing nothing when moth
ing is needed, and using active
remedies when they are of service.
The New York Herald has a Lead
ing editorial article Oh the action of
the American Medical Association,
| promising it with the declaration that
preiudlces die hard, even in the
minds of learned men," 1t argues
that, shat somewhat famous person
age who did not like DR.. Fell, and
who, though at q loss to assign any
good easons for his objections to
that particular practitioner, was none
the less positive that he did not,
could not, should not and would not
like the said doctor, has stood for
some generations as the type of Ii
person who, though indulging him>
self in irrational antipathies, has be-
come victim tie them, and finds that
the concrete malevolences of his mis-,
tory override his intelligence and are
the really controlling facts In
his life. ''But," adds the Her.
aid, ''he must give place as type to
the American Medical Association,
which not only will not tolerate the
professional existence of the doctor
1t does not like, but confounds in a
common wrath every one who holds
that there is any possible modus
vivendi with this dreadful fellow
Fell. The Herald continues:
For a great while the relation in
practice OF physicians of one or am
other school has been a delicate sub
ject, and physicians in large cities
nave felt its difficulty more keenly
than those in the rural
districts. At one time, when the
homeopathic issue first arose there
was no difficulty. 1t was all settled
IN one word: Doctors of the old
school merely shouted 'quackery' at
the others, and that was the end of
it. Perhaps this was at that time
good enough end, too, for homeo-
pathy, as then commonly seen here,
was mere. application of certain
rigid formula 20 symptoms imagined
to be the same, and was neither a
scientific nor an emperial use of
remedial measures. 1t was taken up
by hordes of ingenious persons of
that order of humanity which tries
It's hand at all trades and seldom
succeeds at any, and they went about
with pocketsful of pellets of the
| y1Illinnth lIl1tinn ord tah1ao Of
Hahnemann's provings and guessed
out the relation of one to another
at the bedside III a sort
of pitch and toss way, doing,
it must be admitted, uncom-
monty little harm. But if anybody
imaglnes that that sort OF homeo-
pathy exists here now he does not
know how the world wags. Homeo-
pathic doctors are now as well IN
structed as the great mass OF the
ether doctors, and there are deslra-
bic points of advancement in that
particular open to all Of them; and
besides this, these extravagances OF
theory which were the particular
paraphenelia of the followers of Hah>
nemann have been dropped by the
wayside. Fabulous dilutions, like
'dammes, seem to have had their
day-and there is no more now, we
believe, IN the theory of similars, or
not much more, than every thorough
ly instructed physician admits-no
more than the physical, instructed
or otherwise, acts upon when he uses
the vaccine poison to prevent variola.
"But it will not hurt the New
York State Medical Society to be
under the ban of the National So
ciety, and we hope it may not repent
of it's temerity SO far as to abandon
the liberal and proper position 1t has