IN ASSEMBLY, February 19, 1833. REPORT Of the committee on medical societies and colleges. Mr. Lee, from the committee on medical societies and colleges, to whom were referred certain petitions, REPORTED: That those petitions purport to be signed by inhabitants of the western part of the State of New-York; stating, among other things, that the subscribers have, for a series of years, witnessed the ill effects of minerals, when used as medicines; and also the beneficial effects of botanic medicine. A comparison of these induces them to use all honorable means to diffuse a general knowledge of the botanic practice. The petitioners further add that they are desirous of improving the practice of medicine, by substituting the vegetable kingdom for the mineral; and thus to alleviate the suffering condition of man. Finally, it is prayed that the Legislature pass a law authorising the First Genesee Union Botanic Society, and such other societies as may become auxiliary thereto, to form themselves into botanic societies, with power to license such practitioners as have been, or may hereafter be, properly educated and instructed in the administration of vegetable medicines: and also to exclude such as are ignorant, and unacquainted with the medical practice of roots, herbs, barks, gums and balsams, used by the members of said societies. Was it not that the subjects embraced in these petitions were of the utmost importance to the community, it might be sufficient to dismiss them, with an inquiry into the qualifications of the members of the Genesee Union Botanic Society; and their competency properly to educate and instruct in the knowledge of vegetables. [Assem. No. 174.] 1 Neither the committee nor the House have been favored with their names, and we are left in ignorance, except through general commendation, of the merits or acquirements of these new lights in science. It is astonishing also that persons, pretending to so much philanthropy as these petitioners, should ask for a monopoly, and an exclusive right to practise roots, barks, herbs, gums and balsams, as it is but a few years since the cry-monopoly, raised against the regular medical practitioner, was sufficient to induce an alteration in our statutory regulations. But the subject matter of these petitions involve graver and more important considerations. This Legislature is now asked to sanction the incorporation of a class of self-taught pretenders to the practice of medicine, when we all know that the experience of centuries, and the exertions of learned and wise men of every age, have, as yet, only enabled us to make progressive improvements in it. That, though much knowledge has been acquired, yet much still remains to be learned. The Legislature is further called upon to sanction, by implica tion, the proscription of mineral medicines, as they are called, when we are every day, in summer, drinking soda water, a mineral medicine; when, in our families, glauber salts, or Epsom salts, with mineral medicines, are frequently used; and when nine out of ten of the members of this House are daily, at their respective dwellings, drinking well-water, which contains mineral substances, and would reject it with disgust, if it contained any of the roots, herbs, gums, barks and balsams of the botanic practice. This Legislature is further called upon to sanction, by implication, a species of practice which deals in the most powerful and virulent of the vegetable poisons, and administers them with a profusion unknown, except among experimenters upon brute animals; which gives condiments, (red peppers for example,) as it would food; and which, at the present day, is the most fruitful source of commencing intemperance, in its recommendations of bitters, whose chief ingredient is alcoholic wines. The Legislature is further called upon to sanction all this, when from every quarter of the State we have received the petitions of the intelligent and the humane, out of the profession of medicine, asking us to check the ravages of ignorance and quackery; and when the grave is scarcely closed, in some one or other place, on the victim of infatuation and villany. Surely death has been sufficiently busy among our citizens, during the last season, to render any additional mode of hastening it unnecessary. The profession which it is intended to degrade and debase, on complying with these petitions, is one that, with all its imperfections and short comings, is inseparable from the prosperity of every well regulated community. If it fall, the other liberal occupations will be weakened in their character, impaired in their usefulness, and finally they all will sink into mere trades, for the cunning, the avaricious and the unprincipled. The committee, therefore, recommend that the petitioners have leave to withdraw their petition. IN ASSEMBLY, February 20, 1833. REPORT Of the Committee on Claims, on the petition of Wessel Ten Broeck, relative to work done on a turnpike road. Mr. Russell, from the committee on claims, to which was referred the petition of Wessel Ten Broeck, praying relief for work done on the turnpike road leading from Burlington to Ithaca, REPORTED: The petitioner states that heretofore a law was passed incorporating the Cayuga Turnpike Company, which authorized the construction of a turnpike road from the house of Willis Potter in the town of Burlington, in the county of Otsego, to the town of Ithaca, in the county of Tompkins; that the agents of said company, by flattery and deception, prevailed on the petitioner to work a certain portion of said road to the amount of twelve hundred dollars; that no other work has been done on said road by said company, since that performed by the petitioner; that there has never been a gate erected on said road; that some years after said work was done, the commissioners of highways in the town of Edmeston, in the county of Otsego, (through which said turnpike runs,) altered a public road so as to lay it exactly on that part of the turnpike made by the petitioner; by which that part of the turnpike made by the petitioner is taken for the use of the public, and the petitioner is thereby left without compensation or remedy. The petitioner prays justice may be done him in the premises; the committee have not doubted the truth of the allegations above set forth, but are of the opinion that the petitioner has mistaken his remedy; that there is no legal or moral obligation resting upon the Assem. No. 175.] 1 |