Editorial February 21, 1901 Issue

A Dangerous Measure

Editor

Christian Scientists claim that a measure introduced at Albany, pursuant to the recommendations of the so-called regular practitioners, is a blow at personal liberty and permits the Board of Health of the State of New York to exercise autocratic powers in dealing with people who may have offended it. The bill to which they object is so sweeping in its provision that it makes the layman who meets another on the street and advises him to take a certain course of treatment or to try a given medicine, guilty of a crime. This is hedging the doctors about with too many safeguards. They don't know everything about the science of healing and there is no reason why legislation should be passed upon the theory that they do. Christian Scientists have gone too far in their claims. They have disregarded many of the rules of common sense in dealing with sick people, but there is something more than theory in their belief and the fact should be recognized. The aim of the law-making body should be to strike a happy mean, to enact a statute which shall protect the public against extremists of both schools, against the regulars as well as other people who are making independent researches in the realm of therapeutics. This is the sort of legislation that would be favored by the people of New York, legislation which would protect the public and at the same time be fair to every conscientious man and woman working for the alleviation of human misery and honestly anxious to extend his or her knowledge.—The Buffalo Review.

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