Article December 10, 1904 Issue

A Christian Scientist's View of the Proposed Medical Practice Law

Ezra W. Palmer

The Critique

The text of the proposed medical bill by Dr. S. D. Van Meter, styled, "A Model Act to Protect the Public Health and Regulate the Practice of Medicine," has been read carefully by the writer. Noting also your kind invitation for a Christian Scientist to give his impressions of it, I hasten to respond.

No rational, fair-minded person questions the need of laws regulating the practice of medicine. The public who trust their lives in the hands of physicians have the right to know that the law protects them from quacks and charlatans. Furthermore, the writer does not doubt, although not conversant with the details of existing laws governing the practice of medicine in Colorado, that the laws could be amended to the betterment of medical practice, and this Christian Scientists cheerfully grant. They have no desire to oppose medical legislation per se, and beyond the peradventure of a doubt no Christian Scientist will utter any word of protest against any just, wise legislation dealing with the control of the practice of medicine in itself. Christian Science is a religion and not a system of medicine, and the attempt to include it under medical legislation is both unwise and unjust. Christian Scientists are a people who pray, who believe the Bible is true when it declares that God healeth all our diseases. They prescribe no drugs, they use no electricity, no massage, no will-power; they simply pray. They pray as Jesus prayed for the healing of the sick, the recovering of the sinful. Surely they should be protected in this right, a privilege the dearest the heart could desire.

Furthermore, it is a rule of universal acceptance that we must give if we would receive. We must pay for services rendered. Jesus ennuciated this doctrine when he said, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." Emerson in his great essay on "Compensation" applies profoundly this law to the affairs of life. Here are a few of his sayings:—

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