All examinations of persons not graduates or licentiates must be made directly by the board, and certificates authorize the person named to practise medicine and surgery (ib., s. 5).
The holder of a certificate must have it recorded in the office of the county clerk of the county in which he resides, and the record must be indorsed thereon. On removal to another county to practise he must procure an indorsement to that effect on the certificate from the clerk, and have the certificate recorded in the office of the clerk of the county to which he removes (ib., s. 6).
The examinations may be wholly or partly in writing and must be of an elementary and practical character, but sufficiently strict to test the qualifications of the candidate as a practitioner (ib., s. 8).
The board may refuse a certificate to an individual guilty of unprofessional or dishonorable conduct, and may revoke for like causes, after giving the accused an opportunity to be heard in his defence before the board (ib., s. 9).
Definition, Exceptions.—Any person is regarded as practising medicine who professes publicly to be a physician and to prescribe for the sick, or appends to his name the letters “M.D.;” but the act does not prohibit students from prescribing under the supervision of a preceptor, nor gratuitous services in cases of emergency, nor does it apply to commissioned surgeons of the United States army, navy, and marine hospital service (ib., s. 10).
Itinerant Vender.—Any itinerant vender of any drug, nostrum, medicine, ointment, or appliance of any kind intended for the treatment of disease or injury, who shall publicly profess to cure or treat diseases, injuries, deformities, or ailments by any drug, nostrum, medicine, or other appliance, shall pay a license to the Secretary of the State of $100 per month.
Violation of this section is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment in a county jail for not more than six months, or both. Such licenses to any firm or company do not permit the transaction of business in different places at the same time (ib., s. 11, as amended February 21st, 1891).
Penalty.—Practising medicine or surgery without complying with the act is a misdemeanor punishable with a fine of from $50 to $500 or imprisonment in a county jail from thirty days to three hundred and sixty-five days, or both, for each offence. Filing or attempting to file as his own the certificate of another, or a forged affidavit or identification, is a felony punishable the same as forgery in the second degree (ib., s. 12).
Former Practitioners.—Persons practising in the State at the time of the passage of the act were allowed sixty days afterward to register (ib., s. 13).