MEDICAL CODE. A body of laws adopted by a medical association regulating the comlnet of the profession. Snell voiles forbid the pablic advertising of specific medicines and gratuitous cures. and patent and secret nostrums. The code.: of both chief schools of praetice re quire the professional :rttendanec of one physi cian upon the family of another to be made without et:n•ge, exopt under•• ciremustances in volving unusual trouble and expense: they ex plain the proper relations which should exist between patient and physician. and they fulh define the relative positions of attend ing and the eonsuliing physieinn, forbidding the latter to infringe upon the peculiar rights of the former. The medical mile of ethics in Eng land was prepared in 1803 by Thomas Percival, and on it is founded the mdc established in the United States. Prior to 1647 the codes of medical ethics which existed in this country were instituted by State and local societies, and there were none in many of the States. At its annual
convention in that year the American :Medical Association adopted a code which was recognized as the national code throughout the United States for thirty-live years. The code of the American Medical Association excludes all physi cians other than 'regular' from consultations; and the action of the New York County .Medical Society, in 1882, in giving their members the right to consult with all legally qualified prac titioners,' has been the cause of a serious differ enee between the national and the State or ganizations. delegates from the New York Society having been refused admittance to the annual meetings of the American Medical Asso ciation. Consult Flint. Medical Ethics and Eti quette (New York, 1883).