[Address of N. S. Davis, M.D., president of the American Medical Association.] The fact that this branch of the medical profession has grown to such proportions as to have its own independent colleges and to confer its own degrees, and that it has become necessary that its practice should be regulated by statute, indicate the importance of the exercise of its functions to the public welfare. The fact that it is regulated in a separate article, and as an independent calling from that of an M.D., does not in any manner affect the character of those functions."

*

The Dental Act of 1878 regulates the practice of dentistry in the United Kingdom, and places it, like medical practice, under the supervision of the General Council of Medical Education and Registration, whose functions in dental as in medical matters are discretionary and not controllable by mandamus.t

In France the practice is regulated by the recent law of November 30, 1892. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Russia, all prescribe rules of license.‡

In this country Alabama seems to have been the first State to enact a dental law. At present such laws are in force in Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin. The Dental Act of 41 & 42 Vict. is very similar to the Medical Act in its provisions, and up to the present year the diplomas of Harvard and Ann Arbor have been recognized as entitling their holders to registration thereunder. But it was decided by the General Council lately (in 1893) to discriminate no longer as between American diplomas, none of which now entitle their holders to register as dentists. The French law has so recently become operative that its results cannot be criticised. The statute confines practice of dentistry to doctors of medicine or surgeon dentists, the diploma of the latter class to be conferred by the government, after a course of study to be promulgated by the higher council of public instruction and examinations. Illegal practice is punishable by a fine of from fifty to one hundred francs for the first, and from one hundred to five hundred francs for the second offense.

To make a synopsis of the statutes of our States is hardly worth while in this place, for the same reasons that have caused an omission of a like synopsis of the medical laws. In this transition and formative period the statutes are subject to change by every legislature; and the only safe practical guide for one desiring to begin the practice of dentistry in any State is to consult its most recent statute book. A summary of the law made to-day might prove to-morrow a mere Jack-o'-lantern misleading the inquirer. It may be said generally, however, that the prevalent requirement of license is that the candidate shall appear before a board of dental examiners appointed by the State or State Dental Society, and either satisfy them that he holds a diploma from a college in good standing, or submit to their examination. And we have already seen that the courts will not allow a State Board to delegate its powers to a national association.§

* 41 & 42 Vict. c. 33.

+ Partridge vs. Gen'l Council Med. Ed. & Reg.; L. R., 25 Q. B. 90.

Code du Chirurgien-Dentiste, supra.

§ Illinois State Board Dental Exrs. vs. People, 123 Ill. 227.

The contract of the dentist is governed by the same rule as to the standard of skill and knowledge which applies to the physician. A dentist must have and exercise the reasonable and ordinary knowledge, skill, and care of his profession.* In a New York case it was said that a dentist owed the highest degree of skill and care to a patient under the influence of an anesthetic, and that the fact that the operator instead of extracting the tooth of the unconscious man let it slip down his throat, was sufficient proof of negligence to carry the case to the jury.+ In administering chloroform, however, it was said in a Pennsylvania case that a dentist was only bound to look to the natural and probable effects of the anesthetic.‡

It has been seen above that the confidential relations between physician and patient render extraordinary agreements by the latter in the former's favor suspicious; and in a grotesque case where a dentist took from a pensioner of Greenwich Hospital a bill of exchange for £262 10s. upon an alleged agreement to keep the old gentleman supplied with teeth for the rest of his life, the court held the agreement to be a gross fraud.§

Partnerships, signs, and such matters are, of course, regulated by the ordinary rules of law in such cases provided. And so far as sigus and advertising are concerned, there is no call to cite authorities in a book intended for professional men.

PHARMACISTS.

Reference has been already made to the manner in which the apothe cary became in England a general practitioner of medicine, being succeeded in his ancient and narrower function by the pharmacist and chemist. In the practical administration of medical laws, constant complaint is heard against "counter-prescribers," so called, who are the true successors of apothecary Rose, who made the great fight against the College of Physicians and Surgeons. It is chiefly in sparsely settled districts and the poorer quarters of great cities that the druggist assumes to act as a physician. The test of whether he violates the law in any instance must be determined by the particular facts of each case, for, as was said by Mr. Justice Hawkins in a case already cited, "It is idle to lay down a golden rule upon the subject:"|| It becomes always a question of fact whether under the proven circumstances the druggist merely sold an article, as he is entitled to do, or prescribed it after the manner of a physician.

A druggist is responsible for all injury due to his lack of reasonable knowledge, skill, and care. He is bound to know the properties of medicines and to employ competent assistants, for whose acts in the course of his business he is also liable. In the leading case of Thomas vs. Winchester the defendant was held liable for injuries resulting from a mis

* Simonds vs. Henry, 39 Me. 155.

+ Keily vs. Colton, 1 City Court (N. Y.), 439.

Bogle vs. Winslow, 5 Phila. 136.

Allen vs. Daris, 4 De. G. & S. 133.

||| Apothecaries Co. vs. Jones (1893), 5 R. 101; 1 Q. B. 89; 67 L. T. 677. ¶ 6 N. Y. 397.

take of his assistant in labeling a jar of belladonna as dandelion, which jar was first sold to one Aspinwall, by him to Ford, and by Ford to the plaintiff. In two Kentucky cases* druggists were held liable, the one for selling cantharides on a prescription calling for snake-root and peruvian bark, the other for selling croton oil instead of linseed; and in Michigant a defendant was held liable for his clerk's error in dispensing sulphate of zinc for Epsom salts. But although a drug. gist sells a poisonous drug without labeling it, he is not responsible for its reckless use by one whom he has warned of its properties, and he is entitled to have the competency of his clerk submitted to a jury, together with the question whether there was actual negligence in the case.$

Although one who manages a pharmacy is required to have a certificate of competency under the statutes of many of the States, nevertheless one who is not entitled to such certificate may invest his money in a pharmacy and employ a duly certified agent to carry it on;|| but he cannot take part in the conduct of the pharmacy himself.¶

A pharmacist entitled to register, and who has applied so to do and paid his fee, has been held not liable under the statute of Illinois if the Board of Pharmacy failed to register him.**

The sale of poisons and intoxicants being now almost universally regulated by law, it behooves both physicians and druggists to know the statutory regulations of their domiciles in this regard. The fact that intoxicants or poisons are sold under a physician's prescription is no defense if the vendor has no license.††

Under the British Pharmacy Act,‡‡ forbidding the sale by unregistered persons of certain poisons, but exempting patent medicines, the exemption is held not to embrace all proprietary remedies, but only those covered by letters patent.§§ But a sale of poison under the act is not established by proving the sale of a compound containing an infinitesimally small quantity of a poison defined by the act.||||

An unregistered assistant, who in his master's absence sells a poison, is liable to the penalty under this statute.¶

There is a joyous opinion in a Georgia case of interest to physicians, druggists, and laymen alike, for it holds that whiskey is not a drug. The term drug, said the learned and experienced court, "carries along with it an idea inseparable from it, of something repulsive, nauseousat which the gorge heaves. Whiskey, on the contrary, is inviting, exhilarating." And the court also argued with profundity that a drug is so hard to sell that merchandise difficult to dispose of is commonly

* Fleet et al vs. Hollenkemp, 13 B. Mon. 219; Hansford's Admx. vs. Payne & Co., 11 Bush. 380.

t Brown vs. Marshall, 47 Mich. 576.

Wohlfahrt vs. Beckert, 92 N. Y. 490.

§ Beckwith vs. Oatman, 43 Hun, 265; afd. 132 N. Y. 94.

|| Commonwealth vs. Johnson, 144 Pa. St. 377; 22 Atl. 703.

¶ State vs. Norton, 67 Iowa, 641.

** Carberry vs. People, 39 Ill. Ap. 506.

+ Druggists cases, 85 Tenn. 449. Liquor cases, 37 Am. R. 284. Compare with English cases below, as to what is a sale of liquor or poison.

if 31 & 32 Viet. c. 121.

§§ Pharmaceutical Socy, vs. Piper (1893) 5 R. 296; 1 Q. B. 686; 68 L. T. 490. Pharmaceutical Socy, vs. Delve, L. R. 1894, 1 Q. B. 71.

¶¶ Pharmaceutical Soey, vs. Wheeldon, 24 Q. B. Div. 683.

so called; whence it would seem to follow that to call whiskey, the sale of which is proverbially easy, a drug, would be a "palpable misnomer.” But where the question is one of selling on Sunday, it would seem that over the border such toothsome delicacies as peppermint lozenges will be held prima facie to be a drug or medicine.†

* Gault vs. State, 34 Ga. 533.

tReg. vs. Howarth, 33 U. C. Q. B. 537.

INDECENT ASSAULT UPON CHILDREN.

BY

W. TRAVIS GIBB, B.S., M.D.

Definition. According to the English and American Criminal Codes, indecent assault is ordinarily defined as the mere touching, by a man, of the genital organs, breasts, or legs of any female not his wife, without her consent, even though the parts are covered with clothes. In the French and most of the German codes the offense is designated as "unchaste conduct." Should the female be under the age of legal consent, the act, even with her consent, would constitute the crime of indecent assault upon a child.

Legal Aspect.-There is little or nothing in the medico-legal literature pertaining directly to the crime of indecent assault upon children, except as embraced under the heading of ordinary indecent assault upon a female. Reese, in his Medical Jurisprudence, states that as this crime is usually committed in secret and without witnesses, the law receives the evidence of a single person, the complainant or prosecutrix, as sufficient to establish the charge. In the State of New York a law has been recently passed which permits the testimony of a child, even though she is too young to understand the nature of an oath, to be submitted to the jury for what such an appearance is worth without the formality of administering the oath. As false accusations are exceedingly common, medical evidence becomes of the greatest importance as corroborative proof, and it is therefore exceedingly important that the physician examining the child should be particularly careful in making his examination and framing his report, for it is frequently upon his testimony that the prosecution depends, especially if there have been no witnesses to the assault, and the victim is too young to give competent testimony.

According to most penal codes, the consent of a child, even though she is under the legal age for consent to sexual intercourse, to the commission of an act of indecent assault is considered a sufficient defense to the charge; but in the State of New York the accused man may be prosecuted, even though the child has given her consent, under Section 289 of the Penal Code, which states that:

"A person who

"1. Willfully causes or permits the life or limb of any child actually