thoroughly competent and scientific and manufacture no diseases to suit emergencies nor conjure up complaints that have no real existence. If their number were doubled, if the normal proportion were disturbed, the _disaster_ would surely follow, professional demoralization would ensue. So the German profession sounds a timely note of warning ere the canker of selfishness has destroyed the noble altruistic principles of physicians, without which the doctor is as likely to be a messenger from hell as a ministering servant from heaven. Medical legislation in this country has been nothing less than a farce, partly because the general public is not aware how abased the profession is, and partly that Americans are extremely jealous of what they term personal liberty. It is being attempted to remedy some of the abuses of the medical profession by regulating the practice of medicine by State Examining Boards. Experience has demonstrated that these boards are but the excrescences of the various medical colleges, who are themselves the root of the very evils that are sought to be remedied. The duties of these boards are simply to make themselves officious, and to inquire into the source of the credentials or diplomas of the applicants for a license to practice medicine, and not into the qualifications or competency of the applicants. All that is necessary under such laws is simply to present a diploma of some sort; whether it was stolen, or the diploma of a dead man, or gotten from any of the numerous worthless colleges, is not made the subject of inquiry; and as by far the greatest number of quack-salvers in this country have diplomas, the law falls short of remedying quackery. There are, usually, enough boards of examiners, representing the different schools, so that the different interests of the diploma manufacturers are well represented. A medical examining authority whose functions and powers do not go higher or beyond the mere granting of licenses, or which does not examine into the qualifications of the persons who possess diplomas, is utterly absurd, because it is no protection against ignorance and imposition. A law that presumes that all persons holding diplomas are qualified and competent to practice medicine, is essentially wrong, or inadequate to fulfill the purpose for which it was designed. I have known graduates from what were considered good colleges who could neither write a safe prescription nor diagnose a case. There is only one way towards an approach to an efficient and intelligent board of medical examiners, and that is, one single State board in which the different schools may be represented as to their pet theories of prescribing medicines, but in all other departments of medical science and art there must be a uniformity of talent and qualification.