Before the common law every one undertaking to treat the sick professionally, and as the exercise of his vocation, is legally a physician. He has the rights of one, and when he assumes those rights the law lays upon him the heavy burdens and responsibilities of the profession. It is, of course, far otherwise if any statute prescribes particular qualifications for the practice of the profession and one undertakes to discharge its duties without such qualifications. Then he is doubly a wrong-doer; first, as against the statute; and, second, as against the public, who have a right to demand in him the ordinary proficiency of his profession [101]. In Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Texas and Vermont, there appear to be no statutory requirements regulating the practice of physicians or surgeons. In Virginia, the practitioner only needs a license. In Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, a practitioner must either have a license from a medical board or society, constituted according to the law of the respective States, or else be a graduate of a medical college. In South Carolina and the District of Columbia, he must be licensed by the medical board; so, too, in Delaware. But this rule in Delaware does not apply to those who practise exclusively the |49| Thompsonian or botanic, or homœopathic systems; or practise gratuitously or for what is willingly given them.