The following excerpts taken from a summary with comments respecting the ruling of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, appeared originally in the September number of Physical Culture, and was written by G. Edwards. It comes to us through the columsn of the Raleigh (N. C.) News and Observer.—Eds.

"The Supreme Court of North Carolina has just handed down an opinion which is encouraging to every American citizen who loves fair play, and especially to those who may have suffered from the tyranny of laws enacted under the pressure of powerful, but quietly working medical societies.

"Their influence in the state legislature is powerful in having laws passed for their own protection. They often come to prattle about the need of protection for 'the common weal,' 'the ignorant and helpless common people,' and by such means they have sought to secure the passage of laws which have restricted the rights of others and trampled the 'equal privileges for all' under foot.

"The document following herewith is taken from the Medical Library News, and shows the way medical legislation is worked up.

" 'Confidential and Strictly Private.

" 'Dear Doctor:—Of course you are aware of the fact that some very much needed medical legislation is now pending in the Indiana legislature, and the strong opposition from the so-called "liberal doctors" is about to defeat it. This we must not permit for two reasons" First, we must have the supervision of the practice in the state; and next, we must have protection. We, you know, deserve much better fees than we get, but can never get them till we have a state board to control the practice, and then we can cut out the cheap and inferior men who are willing to practise for any beggar price. And next we can raise the requirements, so that it will take at least seven years' study and a college course. Then every ignorant country clod-hopper cannot push himself into the profession to compete with respectable physicians.

" 'Where such laws, as we ask, have been tried, as in Pennsylvania, Illinois, etc., fees have been raised in one year from fifty to one hundred per cent.

" 'Now, what we want is this: If possible go to Indianapolis, Wednesday, March 4, and visit the legislature with the many other doctors that will be there for the same purpose, and as a body we will demand the passage of a certain bill, and get it and have it signed before our opponents know what we are doing. Of course you know where the headquarters are—go there upon arrival in the city.

" 'We confidently expect five hundred physicians present that day. If it is impossible to come, write to your member in the House and Senate, urging the passage of this bill. Read and destroy this at once.

" 'By order of Committee.'

"This is a document of the medical organization in Indiana, but it is the same trust, the same medical monopoly on which the Supreme Court of North Carolina has put its heavy foot. It is a monopoly as dangerous as, if not more so than, any of the trusts that attempt to deprive the people of their freedom and of the necessities of life. The letter given above means that 'supervision of the practice in this state and protection' is wanted by a band of doctors who dare not place their methods of cure in open competition with other methods, and who are alarmed at the success of those who would institute a brighter era in the curing of human sicknesses. It means that such laws, under the false pretense of protecting the people, are really enacted to sustain medical graduates who could not, otherwise, command enough public patronage to prevent their starving. It means that they are not willing to give full freedom to the spread of truth, and that they would limit by law the spread of human knowledge in healing because it does not conform to theories which they are afraid to put to the test of the survival of the fittest. It means that the citizen is deprived of his most sacred liberty,—the right of a man, in the hour of sickness and in the nearness of death, to choose who should administer to him. Some existing medical laws mean that a person, no matter how well he is versed in physical culture, or mental healing, or any other healing, can be committed to jail if found out, even if he has cured the person after the regular doctor has given up the case.

"Chief Justice Clark, who handed down the opinion in the recent case in North Carolina, pointed out clearly and in an enlightened way the selfishness and tyranny of medical laws. Referring to the law that caused his opinion, he says,—

" 'It is forbidden to relieve a case of suffering, "physical or mental," by any method unless one is an M.D. It is not even admissible to "minister to a mind diseased" by any method, or even dissipate an attack of the "blues" without that label duly certified. Is not this creating a monopoly and the worst of monopolies?' "

In protest against this condition of things, a liberalminded doctor in Illinois cites two cases in which, after the regular physician had given up the case as hopeless, he objected strenuously to the parent's expressed desire and determination to try some other means which had been recommended. In one case he went so far as to threaten the mother with prosecution if an "irregular" was called to the relief of this little one, whom he pronounced to be dying.

"In the case in North Caroline, State v. Andrew C. Biggs, this same practice was carried on. Dr. Biggs has advertised himself to cure disease by physical culture, massage, baths, and diet. The state board of medical examiners began a fight against him in order to prevent him from practising his profession in Greensboro without a license from the board. Dr. Biggs had courage enough to stand his ground and to fight the question to a decided finish. The case was carried to the highest court of the state. In this tribunal, the Supreme Court, the men who molested him not only received the humiliation attached to being worsted, but their law was pronounced an unconstitutional, monopolistic grab.

"Dr. Biggs's victory is the victory of every man who resents a medical empiricism that would encroach upon our liberties and deprive us of freedom of choice as to who shall administer to our dear ones in their hour of sickness, and in what manner relief should be given. We hope that this question will be fought out now in every state where these tyrannical laws exist until freedom for every manner of healing shall have a fair field. Let the best survive!"