Be it known that Physicians Defense Company.

corporation located at Fort Wayne, with the provisions of Charter Sixty nine (69) of the

a foreign

State of Paws of Eighteen hun has conti

one(1899) by filing in the office a duly authenticated copy of Articles of Incorporation a sworn statement showing amount of capital stock and proportion of capital stock represented by its Located property and business transacted in this State and appointment of resident agent. and Defense Company

How therefore, I. P.Hanson, Secretary of State Minnesota.de hereby certify that said Company

has duly complied with the laws of this State and is authonzed to do business herein, with all the powers rights and privileges and subject to the limitations, duties and restrictions which by law appertain thereto; for the period of thirty years.

Witness my offigal signature hereunto subsoubed and the seal of the State of Minnesota hereunto affixed this wenty Seventh day of August in the year of our Lord, one

It is stated that the practice of medicine in Hong Kong is a singular combination of Chinese and British institutions. Two medical concerns do nearly all the business, on annual contract. Each head of a family, or of a business house, contracts for medical attendance at so much a year. Heads of business houses explain that it is a matter of policy with them to have their clerical force feel that medical advice and attendance are free; the warfare against tropical diseases must be so constant that any symptoms no matter how slight, should receive early attention. The physicians who serve these firms do so under term-contracts, each signing an agreement not to practice within twenty miles of the firm's headquarters on the expiration of the contract period.-American Medical Magazine.

Judicial 偷偷
+ Decisions.

Under this heading will be presented each month information relative to judicial decisions affecting the medical profession.

HOLDING OF POST MORTEM WITHOUT NOTICE TO
COMPANY.

In the case of Loesch vs. the Union Casualty and Surety Company, an action brought on an accident policy by a mother to recover for the death of a son insured for her benefit, the Supreme court of Missouri, Division No. 1, says that, on the day after the son's death the physician in attendance told the mother that he desired to hold a post mortem examination, to which she assented, or, at least, made no objection. He called in some other physicians to assist him, and they made a post mortem examination. After it was done, and the body was sewed up, the physicians came out of the room, and then the mother handed the attending physician the policy in suit, and asked him what she should do in regard to it. He examined it, and discovered a clause declaring that, if a post mortem be held without notice to the company in time to have its medical adviser present, all claims under the policy should be forfeited. He went immediately to the office of the company, and notified them of what had occurred, and on behalf of the mother offered to hold another post mortem with their medical adviser if they so desired. But they expressed no such desire, and the mother, after holding the body until the next day, caused it to be buried. The court says that it is satisfied that the holding of the post mortem examination without notice to the company, under the circumstances shown by the evidence in this case, did not have the effect to forfeit the mother's rights under the policy. A clause of forfeiture is not to be strictly construed in favor of the company in such case. On the contrary, whilst it should be given a reasonable interpretation, yet the inclination of the court should be against the forfeiture. The design of this clause in the policy was to enable the company to learn the cause of the death of the insured, as that cause might be shown by a post mortem

examination, if one should be held. Whatever such an examination might show, the company was entitled to an opportunity to know. It is a reasonable requirement under reasonable interpretation, and a violation of its terms under circumstances reasonably showing disadvantage to the company which would work a forfeiture of the policy. But there was nothing in this case to indicate any such disadvantage. In the first place, it was very doubtful if the mother was responsible for the act. If it occurred without her knowledge or consent, it would be no defense to the suit. She testified that she did not know what the word meant, and did not know what the physicians were doing. But, however that might be, as soon as the attending physician saw the policy and read this clause, which was immediately after the post mortem had been held, he went to the office of the company, and informed them what had been done, and offered to allow them to make a re-examination, as before stated. There was no suggestion in the record of any fact or theory which would tend to show that a re-examination of the body at that time would not disclose to the eye of the company's surgeon everything that the first disclosed to the physician who made it. The court does not say that the first examination might not have disclosed facts that could have been hidden from one making a second examination; but there was no such suggestion in this record, and it was not led, therefore, into such an inquiry. Wherefore, the court holds that the fact that the post mortem examination was held without notice to the company was no bar to the mother's action under the circumstances disclosed by the evidence in this case.

WHAT IS AN ACCIDENT?

A recent judgment of the House of Lords decides a point of considerable practical importance to the community in general, and also of considerable interest to the medical profession. A man in the discharge of a duty which necessitated the employment of force acquired a hernia, and sued his employer under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The defendants contended that the plaintiff had not sustained injuries through an accident within the meaning of the act, and this view was upheld by the County court judge, who was in turn supported by the Court of Appeal. The House of Lords has, however, taken another view; reversed the decision of the inferior courts, and awarded the man the compensation for which he sought. The point to be decided is a knotty one, and one which, as apparently the courts

found, affords scope for considerable differences of opinion. Whatever may be the legal interpretation of the words of the act, in our opinion the acquisition of a hernia should not be deemed to be an injury the result of an accident, inasmuch as to permit of its occurrence there must have been some previous pathological condition. A healthy man, in whom the various possible hernial tracks are properly closed, cannot to our mind acquire a hernia from some slight exertion. If he can, who would be found who did not have one? Suppose a man ruptures a gastric ulcer whilst discharging his duty, is that an accident within the meaning of the act? If it is, where is the definition of an accident to stop? If it is not, why should a distinction be made in the case of the rupture of some already overstretched band of fascial fibre that permits an intestine to leave the peritoneal cavity. Reasoning by analogy is notoriously unreliable, but it cannot for that reason be altogether neglected. To our mind injuries should only be considered as the direct result of an accident, for the purposes of the act, when they occur independently of any previous pathological condition. The Workman's Compensation Act is altogether a curious anomaly. In the first instance it inaugurated the absurd system of compensating a man for the consequences or risks he voluntarily undertook, and for the result of carelessness. It now undertakes to further compensate him for injuries the result of previous bodily deformities or ill health. Such acts will eventually injure the class they are intended to benefit. We are informed that in many parts of Great Britain at present, the moment a workman shows signs of ill health or advancing age he is dismissed, and replaced by a younger man, not because he is unable to do his work, but for fear of the consequences of the Workman's Compensation Act.-Med. Press and Circular.

MULES TOO VALUABLE TO BE VACCINATED.

The firm of J. F. Chears & Sons, of Winchester, Ark., sued the Mann Drug Company, of Pine Bluff, Ark. for the value of eight mules over $800 which they claim died after being vaccinated with pure vaccine points sold them through the drug company, by Parke, Davis & Co., of Detroit. The plea was made that Parke, Davis & Co. claimed to be able to prevent charbon by vaccination-true anthrax or malignant pustule-for which mules were treated with such fatal results. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs for $512.50.-Exchange.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLATANS IN GERMANY.

The German Imperial government has notified the various state authorities that more energetic measures must be taken against quacks. The official circular states that the number of charlatans has enormously increased during the last decades, and quack practices have assumed such proportions as to become a serious menace to the public welfare, equally detrimental to the interests of the public and to those of the medical profession. The circular reviews the various measures that have been enforced in Prussia, registration of unqualified, so-called healers, the prohibition of extravagant promises to cure and prosecution of charlatans for illegal practices, and remarks that these measures have not proved an effectual check. Consequently, it is proposed, in the interests of the public, to confer further powers on the local authorities to enable them to put an end to such practices in the future, at least in the cases in which the charlatans have already done injury to the life or health of the patients who have applied to them, and in those cases in which from the antecedents of the charlatan or his personality, attempts to fleece the public may be feared. In such cases the local authorities are empowered to prohibit the quack from practicing further. The law against fraud in business is to be extended to cover illegal practice of the healing art. The official circular is quoted in full in all our German exchanges as an important advance in the campaign against charlatans which the medical profession has been waging. A cable report states that these professed curers will be given a month to secure other employment, after which time they will be prosecuted if they persist in practice. One ncwspaper correspondent cables that the government is in possession of statistics which show that more than 100,000 men and women are illegally practicing medicine and the art of healing in Germany, and that this number is rapidly increasing. One medical statistician says he has found 150 cases of cancer in his province. Of these 25 are attended by authorized physicians and 108 by quacks. He maintains it is nearly as bad in other diseases which particularly call for trained medical aid. Most of these quacks allege that they have occult powers, personal magnetism, "magnetic eyes and hands," and that a cure will be the immediate consequence of implicit reliance on this