Each board of censors must issue certificates without fee to physicians and surgeons who furnish evidence by diploma from a medical college or university, or by a certificate of examination by an authorized board, which satisfies said censors that the person presenting such credentials has been, after due examination, deemed qualified to practise the branch mentioned in such diploma or certificate (ib., s. 3,911).
The censors in their discretion shall notify the practitioner of medicine, surgery, or midwifery of this chapter, and require such persons to comply therewith within thirty days after notification or such further time as is allowed by the censors not exceeding ninety days (ib., s. 3,912).
The certificate must set forth the branches of the medical art in which the person is qualified to practise (ib., s. 3,913).
The certificate must be recorded in the clerk’s office of the county in which the holder resides, or, if not a resident of the State, in the county in which he obtained his certificate (ib., s. 3,914).
A certificate issued by a board of censors is valid throughout the State after being duly recorded. The censors may revoke or annul a certificate if in their judgment the holder has obtained it fraudulently or has forfeited his right to public confidence by the conviction of crime (ib., s. 3,915).
Penalty.—To practise medicine, surgery, or midwifery in the State, or sign a certificate of death for burial or removal unless authorized by a certificate issued and recorded, is punishable with a fine of from $50 to $200 for the first offence, and for subsequent offences with a fine of from $200 to $500, recoverable by an action of debt for the use of any person who sues or by indictment (ib., s. 3,916).
No person practising either of the branches of medicine, surgery, or midwifery is permitted to enforce in the courts the collection of a fee or compensation for services rendered or medicine or material furnished in the practice of any of the branches for which he has not a certificate (ib., s. 3,917).
Exceptions.—The law does not apply to the practice of dentistry, nor to the practice of midwifery by women in the town or locality in which they reside, nor to practitioners of medicine who resided and practised medicine in the State for five years previous to November 28th, 1876 (ib., s. 3,918).