Executive Order 1448

By virtue of the authority vested in me I hereby establish the following order for the Canal Zone, amending the Executive Order promulgated on October 14, 1911, to read as follows:

Section 1. It shall be unlawful for any person to practice or attempt to practice medicine, surgery, dentistry, pharmacy or midwifery within the Canal Zone without first having obtained a license therefor from the Board of Health of the Canal Zone. Any person thus offending shall be punished by a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars ($25.00), or by imprisonment in jail not exceeding thirty (30) days, or by both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court; provided that this order shall not apply to the commissioned surgeons of the United States Army and Navy, or Marine Hospital Service, nor to physicians, surgeons, dentists or pharmacists and their assistants and nurses employed by the Isthmian Canal Commission, nor to nurses acting under the orders of a licensed physician.

Sec. 2. Whoever, not having registered as aforesaid, shall advertise or hold himself out to the public as a physician or surgeon, by appending to his name the letters "M. D.," or using the title of doctor, meaning thereby a doctor of medicine, or shall pretend to a knowledge of medicine or surgery, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars ($25.00), or by imprisonment not exceeding thirty (30) days, or by both in the discretion of the court.

Sec. 3. Any person shall be regarded as practicing medicine within the meaning of this Order who shall prescribe for, operate on, or in anywise attempt to heal, cure or alleviate, or who shall in anywise treat any disease or any physical or mental ailment of another; provided that nothing in this Order shall be construed to prohibit (a) the practice of the religious tenets of any church in the ministration of the sick or suffering by mental or spiritual means without the use of any drug or material remedy, whether gratuitously or for compensation, provided that such sanitary laws, orders, rules and regulations as now are, or hereafter may be, in force in said Canal Zone are complied with; or, (b) gratuitous services in case of emergency; or, (c) the administering of ordinary household remedies.

Sec. 4. This Order shall take effect on January 1, 1912.

Wm. H. Taft.

The White House,

December 26, 1911.