_Recent Legislation in New York State._—The whole matter, however, of licensing physicians to practise has, in the State of New York, been recently regulated by Chapter 468, Laws of 1889, and 499 of 1890, which have reference to the qualifications of persons becoming medical students, and Chapter 507 of 1890, which gives to the Regents of the University of the State of New York power to select boards of examiners from persons nominated by each of the three State medical societies, viz., the New York State Medical Society, Homœopathic Medical Society, and Eclectic Medical Society. These boards prepare questions which are to be approved by the State Board of Regents; examinations are held in different parts of the State upon these questions, the examination papers are certified to that one of these boards of examiners which the student may elect, and that board in turn certifies whether or not the examination has been successfully undergone; and upon its certificate the Board of Regents licenses the student to practise, and his examination papers are filed in the office of the Board of Regents and become a matter of record. These provisions have been enlarged and modified slightly by various statutes since enacted. They are all now embodied in Chapter 601 of Laws of 1893. They will be found carefully synopsized below. _Penal Provisions in New York State._—The New York Penal Code, which went into effect in 1882, enacted that a person practising medicine or surgery, or pretending to be a physician or surgeon, without a license or a diploma from some chartered school, should be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment (Penal Code, Section 356); and the same statute, 357, made it a misdemeanor for a person, whether licensed or not, to practise medicine or surgery, or do any other act as a physician or surgeon, while intoxicated, by which the life of any person is endangered or his health seriously affected.[155] _Giving “Patented” Medicines No Exception._—At one time an attempt was made to claim, that under the patent laws of the United States a person had the right to administer patent medicines without being punishable for practising without a license, but this doctrine was repudiated by the courts. Thompson _v._ Staats, 15 Wend., 395; Jordan v. Overseers, etc., 4 Ohio, 295.