Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-06-04
Dr. Reed Criticises Recent Army Re-
organization Legislation.
ALSO PUBLIC HEALTH STATUTES
Speech Before American Medical
Association at St. Paul.
TEXT OF HIS REMARKS

ST PAUL June 4.-President Charles A.
l.. Reed of Cincinnati today called to order
the general meeting of the American Med
"ical Association in the Metropolitan Opera
House.
Bishop Whippe of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church delivered the opening prayer.
After a speech of welcome by Mayor Smith
preliminary reports of the executive COM
mittee and the committee On arrangements
were read President Reed then rad his
annual report, in part, as follows:
Army Reorganization Attacked.
The army reorganization law of the last
Congress was inexplicable and inexcusable.
1t grades the medical department for rank,
promotion, and, in consequence for ray,
below every other department and special
corps of the army, and with the exception
of second lieutenants, it is graded below
the line. In accordance with it's provisions,
a medical officer, to obtain a colonelcys
must pass through three times many
trials an officer of either the quarter
masters, the subsistence the pay de-
partmentS; more than twice as many as an
officer of engineers, or of ordnance. ard
nearly twice as many an officer of the
Signal Corps The effect of this discrimina-
tion is not only to lower the rank and Iay
of medical officers, but must result in
lessening the efficiency of the corps by re-
pelling men of spirit and worth.
When the Congress, by the enactment of
law, degrades, relatively, the status of an
important body of medical men. engaged in
i public service, it strikes at the status of
every physician in the country. 1t becomes,
therefore, the duty Of every member of the
medical profession, jealous of his rights, his
prerogatves and the fair name he may
leave his children to resent as personal be-
tween himself and every member of the
Congress who voted for this law the action
w a nm ,1r1n on - ~nf S-.r,
Present Public Health Laws Criticised
1t has been the conviction of many en-
lghtened members of the medical profess
sion that the means employed by the gen.
eral government for the protection and pro-
motion of the public health are capable of
improvement. The conditions today are
precisely the same that they were ten years
ago.
The era of effective legislative control of
medical practice came as the natural re-
action from the demonstrated failure to
accomplish the same result through voun-
tary organization. Mixed boards of licen-
sure are now to be found in the ma jority of
the states of the Union. The results of the
twenty five years of statutory regulation
Of medical practice are in striking contrast
with the results of the quarter of century
of attempted regulations by methods of
prescription. The proscriptive rule which
propagated the very evils it was intended
to correct is rapidly expiring by limita-
tions in the face of new conditions that
have been induced in spite of it, by beneti-
cent and Catholic legislation.
l proclaim, events proclaim, the existence
Of a new school of medicine. 1t is as dis
tinct from the schools of fifty years ago
as is the Christian dispensation from its
pagan antecedents 1t is the product of
convergent Influences of diverse antecedent
origin. 1t acknowledges no distinctive
title, it heralds shibboleth. 1t is school
of human tolerance, of personal independ-
proclamation of completeness no preten-
sions to sufficiency. 1t recognizes that truth
is undergoing progressive revelation, not
ending today, but continuing through the
ages. 1t greets as a friend him who
thinks, though he thing error, for, think
ing, he may think truth and thereby add
to the common fund.