THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN MICHIGAN.

BY DR. O. C. COMSTOCK.

[Read at annual meeting, June 12, 1888.]

March 12, 1827, an act of the territorial legislature of Michigan was approved, which did much to save suffering pioneers from the horde of ignorant quacks found in every settlement and doing their deadly work without restraint. The preamble is in the following words, to wit:

"WHEREAS, Well regulated medical societies have been found to contribute to the advancement and diffusion of true science, and particularly the healing art," etc.

SECTION 1. The Medical Society of the territory of Michigan, as already incorporated by that name, shall continue to be a body politic and corporate.

SEC. 2. County societies to be formed of persons in regular standing in the Territorial Society and commissioned by said society for that purpose.

SEC. 3. Doctors exempted from militia duty, serving on juries. SEC. 4. Proceedings of its annual and other meetings to be filed in the office of the county clerk.

SEC. 5.

SEC. 6.

Society, after an approved examination may grant diplomas. Restrictions in reference to the examination of students. SEC. 7. Appointment and duty of censors.

SEC. 8. No person shall commence the practice of physic or surgery within any of the counties of this territory until he shall have passed examination and received a diploma from one of the medical societies established or to be established as aforesaid; and if any person shall commence the practice, without having obtained a diploma for that purpose, he shall forever thereafter be disqualified from collecting any debt or debts incurred by such practice in any court in this territory.

SEC. 9. That if any person, except those who were residents in, and have continued to reside and practice within the territory since

1819, shall practice physic and surgery without being regularly licensed, such persons shall forfeit and pay twenty-five dollars for each and every offense of which he may be duly convicted, to be recovered, with costs of suit, before any justice of the peace of the county where such penalty shall be incurred, by any person who will prosecute the same, excepting army surgeons.

SEC. 11. No person shall be admitted to an examination as a candidate for the practice of physic and surgery in this territory unless he shall have previously studied medical science four years after the age of sixteen, with a regular physician and surgeon-but any portion of time of the study, not exceeding one year, during which the candidate, after the age of sixteen, shall have pursued classical studies, shall be accepted in lieu of an equal portion of time of the study of medical science, and if he shall have attended one or more complete courses of medical lectures, on all the branches of medical science, in any medical college or institution, the same shall be accepted in lieu of one year spent in the study of medical science as aforesaid, the commencement of his studies to be certified to,-not to be licensed under twenty-one years of age.

SEC. 12. Physicians and surgeons who may have received diplomas in other states cannot practice in this territory until they have satisfied the censors of the territorial or county society that their medical education has been full and complete, as is here required.

SEC. 13. Persons practicing without reporting to, or connecting themselves with some society, shall incur the penalty named in section nine of this act.

SEC. 16. That upon complaint in writing, filed with any county medical society charging any practitioner of physic or surgery within such county, with having been guilty of infamous crime, habitual drunkenness, or with gross ignorance and incompetency, every such medical society, at a regular meeting thereof, may proceed to investigate such charge or charges, and if upon such investigation and due proof of the facts so charged, the person complained of shall be found guilty by a vote of two-thirds of all the members present, then such medical society is hereby authorized and empowered to suspend such person from the practice of physic and surgery and the person so suspended shall if he continue to practice physic and surgery within this territory during the time of his suspension, be subject to the penalties of section nine of this act. The person so suspended shall have three months' notice of the filing of charges and have a copy thereof. The testimony in the case shall be in writing and filed with the records of

the medical society. The suspended practitioner may appeal to the Territorial Medical Society.

SEC. 18. Witnesses to be subpoenaed. If refusing to appear and testify, liable to a fine of twenty-five dollars. Swearing falsely, perjury, and liable to its pains and penalties.

SEC. 26. Copy of diplomas and licenses to be deposited with county clerks. Charges made before that is done not collectible at law.

This act of twenty-nine sections, passed in the infancy of the territory, is remarkable in many particulars, both as regards doctor, quacks, and their clients. It was the stitch in time.

The first superintendent of public instruction, Rev. John D. Pierce, in 1827, advocated the establishment of three departments in our University, to wit, one of literature, science, and the arts; one of medicine, and one of law. In 1850 the medical department opened its doors for the admission of its ninety students-a large class under the circumstances, but the smallest it has ever had.

In 1869 the legislature were asked to provide for homoeopathic teaching in the medical department. It was not granted at that time and in the shape presented; but in 1873 a charter for a homoeopathic college was granted. It soon went into active operation and meets the wants and expectations of that branch of medical science and art.

In 1875 a dental college was chartered, and a school of pharmacy in 1876.

About this time the eclectics, so-called, advocated their claims for recognition and patronage, but were unsuccessful.

The asylum for the insane was established at Kalamazoo in 1859, with an ample corps of medical gentlemen and accommodations for one hundred unfortunates although there were six hundred insane persons in the State at that time. This institution has been very much enlarged and its treatment of the insane is abreast with the improved and more successful treatment of insanity developed by time and experience in kindred institutions in this country and in the old world. I have not at hand the means of giving the number cured and greatly benefited as per the annual reports of the institution. I know, however, that it is large and highly creditable to the faculty in charge. Asylums for the insane have been established at Pontiac and Traverse City and all the wards are full, I understand, and yet there are many insane persons in the State, in county jails or poorhouses, or what is possibly worse, running at large without restraint and without protection. An asylum for insane criminals was established at

Ionia in 1883, which has accommodation for one hundred persons. The medical superintendents and their assistants stand deservedly high in their profession, and as experts in cases involving the sanity of persons before the courts of law-indeed the testimony which they give in such cases is the very essence of law.

One of the most deserving institutions of the State, now under the supervision of Dr. Baker, is the State Board of Health, located at Lansing, but the head, de facto, of the boards of health in every township of the State, and from which reports are so frequently made as is necessary for a perfect understanding of the general health and for the guidance of the doctors who are the conservators thereof. The law requires of the authorities of each town the employment of a "well educated physician" to look after the sanitary condition of the town, and report as often as may be necessary to the secretary of the State board at Lansing. The language of section two of the act is as follows: "The State board of health shall have the general supervision of the interests of the health and life of the citizens of this State. They shall study the vital statistics of this State and endeavor to make intelligent and profitable use of the collected records of death and of sickness among the people. They shall make sanitary investigations and enquire respecting the causes of diseases, and especially of epidemics, the causes of mortality and the effects of location, employments, conditions, ingesta, habits and circumstances on the health of the people. They shall, when required, or when they deem it best, advise officers. of the government or other State boards, in regard to the location, drainage, water supply, disposal of excreta, heating and ventilation of any public building or institution. They shall from time to time, recommend standard works on the subject of hygiene for the use of schools." Practicing physicians are required to notify the State board of health of the existence of infectious diseases in their town or ward. Neglect in this case is punishable by fine, and this holds good also in the case of the omission of the head of the family to make known the existence of diseases as before named.

The laws hold the doctors to a strict account as conservators of the public health. Should not their education, therefore, be amply and willingly provided for?

As part of the medical history of the times, and intimately connected with our own medical history, allow me to make a passing allusion to a college outside of our own State, but from which many of us were sent out as M. D's. The history of the college of physicians and surgeons of the city of New York, the first in that great state, and the

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mother in fact of the great number now in existence, dates from 1806, and was the outcome of the felt want of the profession for the protection of themselves and the public also, from the ignorant quacks who were carrying on their devilish and deadly work without let or hindrance. In their application to the legislature for a college charter they affirm that the only object of the movement is the cultivation and improvement of medical science and art. In 1807 a college charter was granted with the power of conferring degrees of doctor of medicine. From that time to the present it has been in successful operation, and its graduates are in every land bestowing upon the suffering the benefits of the instruction imparted in this classic and early school of medicine.

Allow me to digress a moment that I may give utterance to the very great pleasure I feel in saying that the recent gift of one-half million of dollars by Wm. H. Vanderbilt for a building fund for this college was as opportune as it was princely. The money for that purpose has · been judiciously expended, and the new college of physicians and surgeons was formally opened with the enthusiastic rejoicing of men from all parts of the country, eminent in the world of letters. This great gift of the great financier confers immortality upon the giver.

The college clinic was established in 1841, prior to which time surgical operations and the methods of diagnosis and treatment were only witnessed and learned at hospitals and dispensaries. In that year Prof. Parker transferred to the college and brought before the class in surgery such patients as could safely be thus removed. This was the origin of college clinics, now so universally adopted and deemed so indispensable in a thorough medical education.

Medical colleges have vastly multiplied, would that I could say developing more thorough and scientific practice and instruction. But the systems taught antagonize one another and often common sense as well, and dying and suffering victims are laid low. The materia medica of these schools of medicine differ widely. Some have searched the world over to find an antidote or specific remedy for a disease that is cured after the mind cure plan in a giffy. If the faith of the doctor or his patient lets go, then the magnetizer steps in, lays upon his hands, looks wonderous wise and devout, it may be, and pains and aches are sent to Jericho and do not stand upon the order of their going. Some are accused of giving too liberal doses of drastic drugs, unpleasant to take, and are said to have an exhausting effect upon the constitution, and sugar-coated pills and pellets covering an infinitesimal quantity of Latin are substituted therefor, and soon all is lovely. Here's a man who inveighs against the use of all minerals except the brass of