Authorship cannot be conferred; it may be undertaken by one who will shoulder the responsibility that goes with it. To a responsible writer, an article, with his name on it, is the highest product of his mind and art, his property, as nearly flawless as he can make it, founded in his character and evidence of it. If that describes the acceptable standard, medical writers, a responsible group, are in present need of reconsidering the implications of joint authorship. The reader of a report issued by two or more authors has a right to assume that each author has some authoritative knowledge of the subject, that each contributed to the investigation, and that each labored on the report to the extent of weighing every word and quantity in it.