mony where there is a complication of facts, or disputed facts. It is very difficult.

"I think it quite possible, as I suggested to your President, that in case a member of this society was prosecuted and witnesses were called who were members of the same society, it might add to that feeling and weaken the expert testimony of co-members of the society.

"To criticise the handling of any case in court, not having heard the trial of the case, would be like one physician criticising another without knowing anything about the case or the treatment. It is a thing that is impracticable-impossible to do and do properly.

"Allow me to suggest a word as to experts, called out by the remarks of the two last speakers. It is the custom of experts to answer a question literally and stop, because counsel says, "That is all; you have answered the question.' A witness has always the right to explain his answer, and I think the experienced expert will demand his rights and explain his answer, and then he will not be caught in that 'vise' the doctor spoke of.

THE USE OF THE TITLE HOMEOPATHIST."

Judge George C. Barrett, of the Supreme Court of New York City, in reply to the question: "Has a physician, designating himself an Homeopathist and called as such to a patient, any legal or moral right to adopt other than homeopathic means in the treatment of the case?" sends the following answer to the New York Medical Times:

"I have your note of the 11th inst. asking my opinion upon a question of professional ethics. In my judgment there can be but one answer to your question, and that is in the negative. If I call in a medical man who designates himself an homeopathic physician,' it is because I do not wish to be treated allopathically, or eclectically or otherwise than homeopathically.

There is an implied understanding between myself and the homeopathist that I shall receive the treatment which, by tradition and a general consensus of opinion, means small doses of a single drug administered upon the principle of similia similibus curantur.

"If there is to be any variation from that method I have a right to be informed of it and to be given an opportunity to decide. Common honesty demands that before a confiding patient is to be drugged with quinine, iron, morphine or other medicaments, either singly or in combination, he should be told that the 'homeopathist' has failed, and that relief can only be afforded by a change of system. An honest homeopathist, who has not succeeded, after doing his best with the appropriate homeopathic remedies administered on homeopathic principles, should undoubtedly try anything else which he believes may save or clieve his patient. But when he reaches that point, the duty of taking his patient into his confidence becomes imperative. The patient may refuse to submit to the other system, or he may agree, but prefer a physician whose life has been specially devoted to practice under that other system. He may say to the homeopathist: You have failed, but I prefer to try another gentleman of your own school, before resorting to a system that I have long since turned my back upon.’ Or he may say, 'Well, if homeopathy cannot save me, I prefer to go to headquarters for allopathic treatment.' All this, gentlemen, is the logical sequence of the particular designation, 'homeopathist.""

FEES FOR MEDICAL SERVICES.

A decision was recently rendered by Judge Brady of the New York City Supreme Court, in a suit brought by Dr. Srange for payment for professional services.

The judge decided that in a case of this kind the plaintiff had a right to show that his standing in the profession was

high, as bearing upon the question of the amount of compensation. The judge also said:

"There is also evidence tending to establish a custom or rule of guidance as to the charges of physicians for services rendered, and which makes the amount dependent on the means of the patient-his financial ability or condition. This is a benevolent practice, which does not effect the abstract question of value, nor impose any legal obligation to adopt, and cannot be said to be universal. Indeed, there does not seem to be any standard by which, in the application of the rule, the amount to be paid can be ascertained. Each case is under the special disposition of the surgeon or physician attending, and he is to decide as to the reduction to be made on account of the circumstances of his patient; and therefore, when the amount is in dispute, it follows that it is to be determined by proofs to be given on either side. The measure of compensation must be controlled more or less by ability in all the professions, and the service rendered by its responsibilities and success."

(From the Scottish Law Magazine.)

ELECTRICITY AND THE DEATH PENALTY.

We have been favored by Mr. Clark Bell, President of the Medico-Legal Society of New York, with the advance sheets of an article upon this subject, in which he gives an account of the movement in America, and the inquiries which have there been made into the matter.

"There has been," he says, "for more than a quarter of a century in this State a prejudice against the scaffold and the hangman.

"Those who have yielded to the stern exactions of the law, which demands a life for a life,' have felt an almost insurmountable repugnance to the rope.

"The bungling of sheriff's' assistants, the negligent or ignorant adjustment of the noose, have often caused such revolting

scenes at public executions as to fill the beholders with horror, and add to that ever-increasing number, now close to a majority, who demand the entire abolition of the death penalty as a punishment for crime.

"The removal of the scaffold as a factor in the civilization of our century, has engaged the attention of the Medico-Legal Society for many years."

We do not think that the above remarks apply with much truth to the state of feeling in this country. There is much irritation at times at the bungling of hangmen, and there is a party-though not, we think, a growing party-in favor of the abolition of the death penalty; but there is no demand for the substitution of any other form of capital punishment for hanging. That there is an "almost insurmountable repugnance to the rope" on the part of those who are compelled to "yield (in quite another sense than our author) to the stern exaction of the law, which demands 'a life for a life,"" undoubtedly holds good here, and to many this will appear one of the strongest arguments in favor of maintaining the old form of punishment. Mr. Bell then proceeds to give an account of the action of the authorities which led to the new enactment:

"The Legislature of the State, upon the recommendation of Governor Hill, in his messages of 1885 and 1886, named a Commission to examine the subject and report their conclusions, composed of Hon. Elbridge T. Gerry, a member of the MedicoLegal Society, Mathew Hale, Esq., of the Albany Bar, and Dr. Alfred P. Southwick, of Buffalo.

"On January 17th, 1888, this Committee submitted their report to the Legislature of New York. It is a very exhaustive and elaborate document, and it gives the history of human punishments for crimes in earliest times and in all countries.

"It enumerates and describes thirty-four different methods in which the death penalty has been hitherto inflicted.

"The guillotine is in vogue in nineteen civilized countries, the sword in nineteen, the gallows in three, the axe in one, the cord in one, while executions are public in twenty-nine countries and private in seven.

"The Committee claim and enumerate the following as facts

demonstrated by their inquiry:

"1. That the effort to diminish the increase of crime by the indiscriminate application of capital punishment to various offenses involving different grades of moral turpitude, or, in other words, by enlarging the number of capital offenses, has proved a failure.

"2. That any undue or peculiar severity in the mode of inflicting the death penalty neither operates to lesson the occurrence of the offense nor to produce a deterrent effect.

"3. That from the long catalogue of various methods of punishment adopted by various nations at different times, only five are now practically resorted to by the civilized world. These five are-(1) the guillotine; (2) the garrote; (3) shooting; (4) the sword; (5) the gallows.

"In recommending a change from the present barbarous and inhuman system of hanging, four substitutes are considered— (1) electricity; (2) prussic acid or other poison; (3) guillotine; (4) garrote.

"This Committee do not seem to have considered the proposal made by Professor Packard of a painless death by inhaling sulphuric oxide gas in a small room in each jail, nor the lethal chamber suggested by Dr. B. Ward Richardson, of London; and they discard the use of the hypodermic injection of prussic acid or other deadly poison, as hardly advisable, because against the almost universal protest of the medical profession.' "Their conclusions are as follows:

"1. That death produced by a sufficiently powerful electric current is the most rapid and humane produced by any agent at our command.

"2. That resuscitation after the passage of such a current through the body and functional centers of the brain is impossible.

3. That the apparatus to be used should be managed to permit the current to pass through the centers of function and intelligence in the brain.

The Commission suggested other considerations of great public interest, which may be stated as propositions:

"1. That the State, by the present universal sentiment of