Judge Boyd Treats Doctor Lawbreaker Like Any Other Lawbreaker, 1910

“Judge Boyd Treated a Doctor Lawbreaker Like Any Other Lawbreaker—Did You Ever!” from the Farmer and Mechanic newspaper, published in Raleigh, N.C.,, Jan. 4, 1910

The Statesville Landmark is pained to note that Dr. S.A.W. Holmes of Rutherford County was convicted in the Federal Court in Charlotte last week of illicit distilling, sentenced to 15 months in the penitentiary and fined $100. Judge Boyd surely did not have before his eyes the proper respect for the medical profession when he imposed this sentence, and it is now up to the medical society of Greensboro to meet and adopt resolutions of indignation, seeing that one of the profession has been treated as a common criminal. It will be realized that when doctors in Greensboro were hauled to court to answer for improperly issuing liquor prescriptions, the medical society complained that the police used the same methods to secure the evidence as was used in the case of ordinary blind tigers. 

What difference, if any, there is between a doctor who illegally—and immorally—issues liquor prescriptions and an ordinary blind tiger, was not, however, made clear. To some minds the preference would be given to the tiger, for few of this class lay special claim to respectability. It may be, however, that the Rutherford doctor, who was probably manufacturing the material with which to fill his prescriptions, does not belong to a medical society. If he does not he will get no sympathy from the members of the organization.