DECISION 
In Equity Suit of John C. Cotton vs.Theod. J 
Young, etal., Members of the Medical 
Society of Crawford County. 
MEDICAL COURTS AND JUDICIAL COUNCILS 
REVERSED. 
DOGBERRY AND VERGES VINDICATED. 
A FULL HISTORY OF THE CASE. 
MEADVILLE, PA. 
TRIBUNE-REPUBLICAN JOB ROOMS, 
1887. DECISION 
In Equity Suit of John C. Cotton vs. Theod.J. 
Young, et. al., Members of the Medical 
Society of Crawford County. 
MEDICAL COURTS AND JUDICIAL COUNCILS 
REVERSED. 
DOGBERRY AND VERGES VINDICATED. 
A FULL HISTORY OF THE CASE. 
MEADVILLE, PA. 
TRIBUNE-REPUBLICAN JOB ROOMS, 
1887. To the Medical Profession. 
The case of Varian and Barr vs. Cotton, out of which grew 
the suit in equity of John C. Cotton vs. Theod. J. Young, et. 
al, members of the Medical Society of Crawford County, has 
been before the various Medical Courts of the State for three 
years previous to and including part of 1885, and in an equity 
court since September of that year, and has attracted an un- 
usual amount of attention, not only from the members of the 
profession, but from the laity also. 
Since the latter suit has been recently decided in my favor, 
and is believed to be in some respects unique, I have deemed 
it of sufficient importance to call the attention of the profes- 
sion to a brief history of the case and to the lessons taught by 
this protracted controversy. 
The difficulty originated in 1881, when charges were pre- 
ferred against me in the Medical Society of Crawford County 
by a personal enemy. 
One specification only out of three was sustained, viz : “act- 
ing as agent for a hair tonic;” the remaining two being decided 
in my favor by a unanimous vote. 
The “hair tonic” was a non-patented preparation, the con- 
stituents of which were announced in a public lecture in the 
city of Meadville by the proprietor, a class-mate of mine more 
than forty years before ; so that had it been a medicine at all 
it was neither a patent medicine nor a secret nostrum, the use 
of which the rules of medical societies condemn. 
For so grave an infraction of the code of ethics, a vote of 
censure prevailed in the society by a small majority, after I 
had publicly stated that “I had not wilfully violated any medi- 
cal law or the code of ethics when I handed my friend’s hair tonic 
to his customers, during his absence from my office, and I did 
not now believe that I had violated any provision of the code; 
yet in deference to the better judgment of a majority of the 4 
members of the Society I would discontinue all connection with 
the offensive article.” 
To remove that vote of censure an appeal was taken to the 
higher medical courts. 
When in due course the case was reached in the Judicial 
Council of the State Medical Society, at Titusville in May, 
1882, and during the hearing thereof, with the evident design 
of influencing its decision, the attorney for the Society intro- 
duced a false and libelous statement, signed or endorsed by 
himself, Drs. Varian, Harr, and Young, all residents of Titus- 
ville. This statement related to words spoken in debate by 
me one year previously, and alleged to be in contempt of the 
Society, although at the time of their utterance I had not been 
called to order by the presiding officer. 
This statement was entirely irrelevant to the issue before 
the Council, and objection was respectfully urged against the 
introduction of a new charge and new evidence, (which the pa- 
per in fact was,) in an appellate court where no preparation for 
defense was possible. The objection, although founded in 
equity, reason, and common sense, was overruled, and the pa- 
per admitted in violation of the rules of every court of law. 
I immediately on the floor of the council chamber publicly 
denounced the statement as unqualifiedly false, and have ever 
since so characterized it, publicly and privately, formally and 
and informally. Hut my individual assertion was pitted 
against the written statement of four gentlemen before a court 
composed of those who were personally strangers to me. 
At the next meeting of the County Society in Meadville, 
July, 1882, I preferred formal charges against the four Titus- 
ville members who had signed or endorsed the libelous paper, 
“for conduct unbecoming medical men and gentlemen.” 
As the County Society met alternately in Meadville, the 
county-seat, and Titusville, between which places there had 
existed a jealousy and antagonism, social as well as political, 
for many years, due largely to the fact that Titusville had not 
become the county-seat of Petroleum County, which was 
charged principally to Meadville influence ; and further, as the 
distance between those places was fifty miles by rail, with a 5 
tedious change station between, and Titusville was eighty 
miles distant from the western limits of the county, the mem- 
bership in attendance varied considerably at every alternate 
meeting, amounting to almost two separate societies. 
At the next meeting in Titusville, October, 1882, when but 
two members were present from Meadville and none from the 
western portion of the county, instead of assisting me to se- 
cure an investigation, as I erroneously supposed that they 
would, or imperatively demanding one, as innocent, honorable 
gentlemen invariably do when accused of dishonorable ac- 
tions, the four accused members voted solidly to dismiss my 
charges, their votes and influence being necessary to carry the 
motion. They thus formally declared that I should not have 
an opportunity to prove my accusations. Modesty, or a high 
sense of honor would have suggested to most gentlemen the 
impropriety of voting at all on a motion to quash an indict- 
ment against themselves for falsehood. 
In the intervening time between preferring the charges and 
the next meeting of the Society, I used every means possible 
to procure the original paper presented to the Judicial Coun- 
cil ; but in this I failed, most probably for the reason publicly 
given in the Society by Doctor Varian, viz : “That it was no 
part of the duty of an accused party to furnish evidence to 
convict himself”; thereby conceding the fact that the paper 
did contain such evidence. 
There was much discrepancy in the statements of the four 
accused in reference to the fate of the original paper. While 
one assured the Society that every effort was being made to 
procure it, another stated before the Society that “the attor- 
ney probably had taken it home and his boys had made wads 
of it while still a third privately asserted that “Cotton 
would give considerable to get hold of that paper,” but with a 
significant nod, added, “he never will see it.” A fair inference 
from all these conflicting statements was, that the illegitimate 
offspring of their fertile imaginations had been cremated 
amidst the unseemly levity, it may be, of its unnatural parents. 
One thing must be apparent to every one, what no one inter- 
ested in securing it was for a moment idiotic enough to doubt, that had its allegations been true no difficulty would have been 
experienced in securing a copy at least, even if the boys had 
made wads of the original, as its contents were not so abstruse 
or elaborate but that its authors could have duplicated it at 
any time had they so desired. 
After my charges had been so summarily disposed of in the 
Titusville meeting, as above related, in order to throw dust in 
the eyes of the Society, and divert attention from themselves 
and their questionable course, two of the accused, Doctors 
Varian and Barr, preferred retaliatory or counter charges 
against me, with the further obvious design of having their 
charges heard and me disposed of before I could renew mine 
against them. This scheme, however, proved abortive, as I 
took occasion to prefer the same charges three different times 
in the Society, and asked the poor privilege of proving them ; 
but each time they were dismissed by the votes and influence 
of the accused parties, the last time at a meeting held at Ti- 
tusville, by their votes alone, not a single other member voting 
with them to deny me the privilege of substantiating so grave 
an accusation. 
After my charges had been dismissed the third time, in giv- 
ing my reasons for declining to prosecute the charges against 
the accused parties in the higher courts, I made the following 
statement to the Society : “I am justified in the conclusion 
and perfectly satisfied that my charges have been abundantly 
substantiated by the irresistible logic of events, ‘confirmation 
strong as proofs of holy writ’ ; and if there be one member of 
this Society who, in the light of the above facts does not be- 
lieve that these gentle.falsified in that statement before 
the Judicial Council, such a member would not believe that 
they did, although one rose from the dead and assured him of 
the fact.” 
The charges against me were tried the first time ex parte in 
a Titusville meeting, by the four accused members and two 
others, constituting the entire voting force of that meeting ; 
while I was confined to my bed by a painful illness, of which 
fact the Titusville parties had been fully informed by telegrams 7 
and certificates of attending physicians. This latter circum- 
stance was stoutly denied by the Titusville faction for a time, 
but in order to save the unexpended balance of their reputa- 
tion for truth and veracity, whatever that might be, it was 
thought inexpedient to further deny a fact so easily susceptible 
of proof. 
The charges and specifications were sustained, however, and 
I was formally thrown out by the six unanimous votes re- 
ferred to. 
One circumstance will show the utter recklessness of these 
gentlemen, and the means they were capable of resorting to 
to accomplish their designs. At the same meeting, April, 
1883, after passing the vote of expulsion, these six members 
adopted a most offensive minute concerning me, and at the 
close of the meeting approved their own ruinates. At the 
next meeting, in Meadville, these minutes appeared in a per- 
manent form, copied in the Secretary’s book, and when Doctor 
Calvin, a friend of mine, arose to object to the outrageous 
statements and false accusations of those minutes, he was 
called to order by the President, Doctor E. M. f'arrelly, of 
Townville, one of the six members who, on the final ballot 
voted for expulsion, with the announcement that “those min- 
utes had been approved at the last meeting in Titusville, and 
that, consequently, any remarks on them were out of order.” 
This procedure and ruling was so at variance with the rec- 
ognized custom of all parliamentary bodies that even the Ti- 
tusville faction, at the next meeting, was compelled to repudi- 
ate it as indefensible. But the procedure and ruling had ac- 
complished its design, and then of course it was indefensible. 
The Board of District Censors, on appeal, reversed the ac- 
tion of the Society, restored me to membership, and remand- 
ed the case to the Medical Society of Crawford County. 
The case was tried a second time ex parte by the Titusville 
faction, none of my friends being present, at an irregularly 
called special meeting, where only one member of the Board 
of County Censors was present ; which Board is the only judi- 
cial body authorized by the constitution and laws of the Coun- ty Society to try causes of this nature. (Sec decision of Court 
in Appendix.) 
Acting under the advice of a prominent member of the 
Board of District Censors, however, the Society, without even 
the formality of a report from its Judicial Board, proceeded to 
try the case itself, with the same result, of course, as at the 
previous ex parte trial. 
When a second appeal was brought before the Board of Dis- 
trict Censors, that astute body caricatured the famous police 
court of Dogberry and Verges, by producing a rule that they 
had manufactured for the occasion, and which covered the ad- 
vice previously given to Titusville by the District Censor re- 
ferred to; defining, without warrant of law, what in their judg- 
ment was the powers of a county medical society, and em- 
bodied in what they were pleased to designate as “Rule No. 
3,” which was as follows : 
“The County Medical Society is a power above that of its 
own Censors. It has, therefore, the right to take charges pre- 
ferred against a member out of their hands and dispose of 
them as it may deem just and proper within the limits of the 
law.” 
In other phrase, the people of this country is a power above 
that of its own rulers, and have therefore the right fo usurp the 
constitutional functions of those rulers, try causes for the judi- 
ciary, enact laws for the legislature, or enforce them for the 
Executive within the limits of the law. As the Society had 
simply acted in accordance with this ex post facto law, its ac- 
tion was of course sustained. 
On a further appeal to the Judicial Council of the State 
Medical Society, which met in Philadelphia, May, 1884, the ac- 
tion of the District Censors and of the County Society was 
reversed, I was again restored to membership, and the case 
once more remanded to the Medical Society of Crawford 
County. At this session of the Council much irrelevant mat- 
ter and personal vituperation were permitted in the argument, 
altogether unbecoming the dignity of a grave judicial body, in 
spite of a respectful protest. The case finally came up for hearing before the Board of 
County Censors in January, 1885, and after a full and patient 
investigation, both sides for the first time being heard, the 
Board made a report to the Society fully exonerating me from 
all censure, dismissing the charges ; in other words, ignoring 
the bill. At the instigation of the four accused Titusville 
members, however, and on motion of one of them, the action 
of the Censors itself was ignored, and the Society, not by au- 
thority of law, but .by the edict of the Board of District Cen- 
sors, once more proceeded to try the case de novo. 
After this farce had been concluded, the accused Titusville 
parties, including the two prosecutors in this case, controlled 
not only their own votes against me, but those of two other 
members, Messrs. Farrelly and Strayer, and I was again thrown 
out by six votes to three, the balance of the Society declining 
to vote. 
A dozen applicants for membership, friends of mine, who 
had been knocking at our doors for admission for nearly a 
year, and whose initiation fees had all been paid for months 
previously, were compelled to dance attendance in the ante- 
room, by the strategy of the accused four, until the case was 
decided against me, when they were graciously admitted to 
membership. 
The District Censors, on appeal, experienced no difficulty 
in deciding that the laws of the Board, as epitomized in Rule 
3, like those of the Medes and Persians, could not be changed 
and the action of the Society was therefore sustained. 
An appeal was again taken to the Judicial Council of the 
State Medical Society, which convened in Scranton, May, 1885. 
On my arrival there, before the opening of the Society, I 
found the Judicial Council already in session “for the purpose 
of organizing" and two of the accused Titusville members, 
one of whom was Doctor Varian, as I was informed and be- 
lieve, closeted with them. 
The Council was composed at this session of five members, 
three of whom, Drs. H. H. Smith, Traill Green, and J. L. 
Stewart, were ex-Presidents of the Society—as Doctor Varian, 
one of the prosecutors in this case was—although the Baron Munchausen, facile princcps of the Medical Society of Craw- 
ford County. 
When my appeal was called, “the atmosphere of the Council 
Chamber was heavy with prejudice against me, without those 
safe guards which human experience has shown are necessary 
to secure justice from an impartial court.*” The atmosphere, 
like the darkness of Egypt, could be felt. 
During the preliminary discussion as to what line of argu- 
ment would be permitted by the Council, the President, Dr. 
II. H. Smith, without consulting his associates or hearing my 
printed brief or argument against the constitutionality of Rule 
3, decided “that the Board of District Censors had a right to 
make any rule for their own government which they deemed 
expedient, without interference by the Council.” 
Rule 3, although it contravened the fundamental law of our 
entire organization, and contained the ridiculously absurd 
proposition that an illegal act could be performed with the 
sanction of law, was claimed as coming within this ruling. As 
my whole case hinged largely on the unconstitutionality of 
Rule 3, such a ruling practically decided it against me. 
As a protest against such a travesty of justice, and to vindi- 
cate the reputation of Dogberry and Verges from invidious 
comparison, suit was brought in an Equity Court, where the 
rights of a Baron Munchausen are much the same as those 
who are not Barons ; and where the Goddess of Justice is 
blindfold and not peering through ex-Presidents’glasses, skill- 
fully adjusted to produce a squint. 
Some important deductions can be drawn from this contro- 
versy and its termination, among which are the following : 
I. Gentlemen eminent in the medical profession, are fre- 
quently poor lawyers and worse judges, incapable of weighing 
evidence, and ignorant of the rules w'hich govern judicial pro- 
ceedings. Such men are eminently unfitted for judicial posi- 
tions. 
*Report to the Philadelphia County Medical Society by its rejected delegation to 
American Medical Association at St Louis, Mo., May, 1886. II. The laws which are adopted for the government of vol- 
untary associations, and to which all have given assent, must 
be respected and obeyed in all judicial proceedings, or the 
Equity Courts will interfere and compel that respect and obe- 
dience. 
III. No judicial body can issue a ukase in contravention of 
medical law, and enforce its observance, as was attempted in 
case of Rule 3, no difference what medical authority en- 
dorses it. 
IV. No chairman of a judicial body can usurp the functions 
of the court over which he presides, and decide a controverted 
point in medical law by inspiration ; but the court must give 
the matter a patient hearing and wait for the evidence before 
rendering a decision. 
V. Individual rights of private members must be as sacred 
in the eyes of medical law as that of ex-Presidents of the State 
Society. 
VI. All judicial proceedings in medical courts must conform 
more closely to the rules of courts of law, which the experi- 
ence of ages has demonstrated are best suited to maintain 
the majesty of law and the rights of individuals. 
John C. Cotton, A. M., M. D. 
Meadville, Pa., March 28, 1887. 
The facts in the foregoing statement, as far as they are mat- 
ters of record, can be verified by the minutes of Crawford 
County Medical Society ; other statements, not of record, can 
be substantiated by unimpeachable witnesses. J. C. C. APPENDIX. 
John C. Cotton, vs. T. J. Young, et. al. 
Court of Common Picas Crawford County, sitting in Equity, 
No.j, September Term, 1885. 
In Exception to Master’s Report : 
The preliminary question to be determined in this case, is as 
to the jurisdiction of a Court of Equity to entertain this bill 
and grant the prayer for relief. The act of 1836 and its 
supplements gives the Court of Common Pleas plenary power 
in the supervision and control of all unincorporated societies 
or associations, and like power to prevent and restrain the com- 
mission and continuance of acts contrary to law and prejudicial 
to the rights of individuals. 
The defendants here are an unincorporated association, and 
the plaintiff complains that they have committed or are about 
to commit an act which is prejudicial to his rights and wholly 
contrary to law. Hence it is most evident that this Court has 
complete jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter. 
It were a waste of learning and research to cite authority for 
so plain a proposition. 
The claim made by defendants that the writ of mandamus is 
the proper and exclusive remedy, is untenable, for it is right in 
the teeth of the fact, that the act of assembly in terms con- 
fines this remedy to public officers, and to municipal and other 
corporations, and therefore such a writ cannot issue against any 
other class. 
The contention of the defendants is further made that the 
injury of which the plaintiff complains has already been done 
him, and therefore no injunction can be available to redress 
his wrongs. 
An injunction, in its ordinary sense, is a command, and this 
command may be either to do or to refrain from doing, some 
particular thing. An injunction, in its legal sense, is a reme- 
dial writ, issuing by order of a Court of Equity, commanding 
a defendant to perform some act, or restraining a defendant 
from the commission or continuance of some act. An injunc- 
tion may therefore be prohibitory, or it may be mandatory, in 
which latter event it is very like a mandamus, both in name 
and character. An injunction of this latter kind is one that compels a defendant to restore things to their former condi- 
tion, and virtually directs him to perform an act, and the or- 
der need not be even direct in form, for the end may be reached 
by an order apparently prohibitory. The remedy can be ap- 
plied by either means, as may be deemed most expedient. 
I find nothing in the several prayers for relief in plaintiff’s 
bill that is repugnant to any of the principles or the practice 
of Courts of Equity. 
It is a well known legal principle that voluntary unincor- 
porated societies or associations may adopt a constitution and 
laws for its own government and for the government of its 
members, and this is the law of its being, and any one who 
voluntarily becomes a member of such organization, is bound 
by such law, and must submit to all judgments and decrees 
given thereunder. Yet this principle is subject to one or more 
very important qualifications. The governing laws of such a 
body, while they may be unfair or despotic, yet they must be 
reasonable and not absurd ; they must not violate natural 
right, and they must not be repugnant to the constitution or 
the laws of the State. 
Another important limitation to the absolute authority of 
such a body is this : 
The association itself must follow and obey its own laws and 
rules. If it undertakes to discipline and punish a member, it 
must do it in the manner, and only in the manner, directed by 
its governmental rules. If such an association keep within 
these bounds, courts of justice will not interfere with its edicts 
and decrees, even if they are arbitrary .and tyrannical ; yet 
courts of justice have such a supervision over it as to inquire 
whether or not any specific action is within or without the 
boundaries of law and reason. When a complaint is made of 
illegal conduct, such as the unlawful trial and punishment of 
a member of such a society, a Court will always examine the 
law of the body and the record of its trial ; and if the one 
does not accord with the other, it will apply a remedy for the 
wrong, and compel the association to obey its own laws by 
directing the injured party to be reinstated in those rights of 
which he has been unjustly deprived. I do not doubt that in 
some cases a Court might go further, and inquire into the 
merits of the case, and determine the guilt or innocence of the 
accused party, or at all events ascertain whether the offence 
for which the trial is had, comes within any prohibitory law of 
the body, or whether it is not of so trivial or absurd a nature 
as to be unreasonable, and therefore unpunishable. 
In the case before us, the plaintiff complains that he has 
been unjustly and illegally tried and punished by the Crawford 
County Medical Society, of which the defendants are officers and members ; that he was charged with conduct which was 
no offense against the laws of the society ; that, notwith- 
standing his acquittal in the only lawful forum in which he 
could be tried, he was expelled from the society by the defend- 
ants, and he therefore prays for relief and that a mandatory in- 
junction may issue against the defendants, requiring them to 
reinstate him in membership. 
A good deal of space in the testimony, master’s report and 
argument of counsel, has been taken up on the inquiry of the 
guilt or innocence of the plaintiff of the charges preferred against 
him. In the view I take of the case, it is unnecessary to do 
more than allude to this portion of the case by saying, that so 
far as I can see, the plaintiff has not been guilty of violating 
any of the laws of the society of which he was a member ; that 
the charges and specifications are of a very trifling nature, and 
not worthy the serious attention of gentlemen of the position 
and reputation of these defendants. However this may be, 
the point was largely one of etiquette and casuistry, and with 
this I shall take no concern. 
The facts and the conclusion at which I have arrived, is this: 
The charges and specifications thereof were, by the society, 
referred to a body of officers of the society, known as the 
censors, and by that tribunal were duly examined, and the 
plaintiff was duly tried by the censors under these charges, 
and was found not guilty thereof. This body of censors was 
the only tribunal that had any jurisdiction to hear and deter- 
mine the charges, and to pronounce the guilt or innocence of 
the accused, and that body dismissed the charges and acquitted 
the plaintiff. I do not deem it necessary to quote at length 
the several sections and articles of the society’s constitution 
involved, as this has been so done by the master in his report. 
The language of article VII is plain in its enactments, and 
provides for the trial of accused members by the board of cen- 
sors, and by this board only. Punishment is to be inflicted by 
the society itself, but only after a conviction by the censors. 
A court may only pass sentence upon a person found guilty 
by a jury. Upon the very loosest construction of article VII 
the board of censors has at least the authority and powers of 
an inquiring body, or as a grand jury; and, as such, the board 
dismissed the charges. This, therefore, was the end of the 
matter, and was as if a grand jury had ignored a bill of indict- 
ment, and then the functions of a court to hear and determine 
could never be exercised. Nothing to be found in section 5 
of article VI is opposed to the construction I give to article 
VII. The former section is indeed rather confirmato.iy of it, 
for it refers to the duties of the elective officers of the society, 
and not at all to the discipline of members. 16 
The right of appeal allowed in certain eases by section 2, 
article VIII, cannot be made to apply to this case, for no 
member Was prejudiced or placed in an improper light by the 
report of the censors, and, moreover, no one took any appeal 
from the report. I only allude, in passing, to the claim made 
by plaintiff of the further illegality of the vote for expulsion, 
because one of his accusers voted against him, and in this way 
only was the two-thirds majority secured, and say that the 
claim of illegality seems to be well founded on the principle 
of the well-known maxim : Nemo debet esse judex in propria 
sua causa. 
The district censors and the state board might well have 
decided this point against the right. The record does not 
show, however, that the appeal of the plaintiff to these high 
powers was ever determined at all. Yet, with all these im- 
perfections, the court has nothing to do, because of the error 
which goes to the foundation of the whole case. 
The radical and constitutional error to be found in the case 
is this : 
This plaintiff, as the accused person, was duly tried by the 
only constitutional court that had authority to try him, and 
by that court he was found not guilty of any offense. The 
society had no right nor authority to try him after an acquittal, 
and had no right to punish an innocent party. The whole 
proceedings had by the society, after it had received the re- 
port or verdict of the board of censors, were outside of any 
lawful authority, and therefore invalid. The vote of expulsion 
must be pronounced void, and this plaintiff must be restored 
to full membership in the Crawford County Medical Society. 
The exceptions to the master’s report are all overruled and 
his report confirmed. 
Let a final decree be made accordingly. Per Curiam, 
Pearson Church. 
February 14, 1887.