Making rules to fit obvious and extreme situations is a simple matter. Applying them to cases which fall between poles is difficult. Where some blatant, self-appointed goat-gland charlatan claims miraculous cures, it is obvious that strict application of the rule against a doctor's advertising should be strictly enforced, But what about the modest physician concerning whom it is impossible to say, in such a column as this, the simple truth of his achievements and benefactions — at least while he is still in the land of the living?
That prelude underscores the pleasure and gratification every thinking person must have felt on seeing last Sunday a great gathering of Orleanians of all creeds, economic brackets, social backgrounds and races. They assembled to honor a physician now 70 years old, who had announced his retirement from active practice. It is therefore permissible to say and print nice things about him without subjecting him to the discipline of his medical^ association. * * *
HE IS ISIDORE COHN, the
sort of human being to describe whom the word *'gentleman" had to be invented. Among those eulogizing him
Sunday, in the hospital where he has practiced and taught for 48 years, were men named MacKenzie, Mtengolara, Levy, Matas and HirschT Among the letters he received when he retired were those from the heads of the Jewish Children's Home, the Episcopal Home, and Hope Haven, all of which he had served for I don't know how many years without financial remuneration as surgeon, What is one to do say when seeking to pay tribute to such an individual? Born at Brusle Landing in West Baton Rouge Parish—a settlement compared to which a village would be metropolitan—a mere listing of the professional honors that have been heaped upon him in the ensuing 70 years would fill half a dozen such columns as this.
Another half dozen could be crammed with the titles of the medical papers he has published, and a roster of the world capitals and American cities to which he has been called to make addresses.
