Article March 30, 1907 Issue

A bill numbered 123, which has passed the Missouri Senate...

Carthage (Mo.)Democrat

A bill numbered 123, which has passed the Missouri Senate and is now pending in the House, is one which is attracting attention all over the State. The bill is drawn and is being pushed by members of the medical fraternity and purports to be an act ot regulate the practice of medicine and surgery. In fact the bill not only prohibits the practice of medicine and surgery without a license which the State Board of Health is authorized to issue only to graduates of medical schools who stand a rigid medical examination. but to prohibit the treating of the sick and afflicted by any one without such a license unless such treatment is gratuitous. In other words, the bill is obviously drawn for the purpose of preventing any but licensed practitioners of the medical schools from charging fees, and is generally considered to strike directly at Christian Science healers.

It is the province of the State to provide that none but competent persons schooled in all the knowledge the presentday medical colleges can give, should administer drugs or use the knife on the sick and afflicted. Poisonous drugs and knives in the hands of the ignorant and unskilful are dangerous. The State should protect its citizens from incompetence in the use of drugs and knives, but the State should also be careful to avoid any attempt to compel its citizens to accept any particular mode of treatment for illness or affliction, or to compel any citizen to accept the services of those only who use drugs and knives in the treatment of the sick and afflicted. Medicine, like all the sciences, is continually changing. The old school fought the inroads of the new school, yet the new school of homeopathy has established itself firmly by proven success, while osteopathy, the last candidate for admission, has worked many reformations, but it has its ardent believers and its record of many remarkable cures. The State cannot affort to discriminate by empowering any group of physicians or any school of medicine which presumes to be superior, and discourage and cut off the practice of others which may be as good but newer.

There is a growing sentiment, which must be recognized, against the use of drugs. The Christian Scientists have obtained excellent results through their so-called drugless healing, and have been the pioneers in medical therapeutics and the mental modes of healing the sick. But other church denominations believe now and have believed in spiritual methods of healing the sick. The State should at least respect the convictions of these citizens who believe they have found something better than drugs. The right of a citizen to choose his own method of being healed should not be invaded or ignored. The practitioner who desires to heal without the use of knife or drugs could of course take the training and examination and receive the permission to practise and receive fees under this act; but why should one who does not believe in drugs be forced to take this superfluous training, if he can heal those who apply to him for treatment, in order to receive legally the fee for services which might prove as valuable to the patient as those of the old-school practitioner. Compulsion of the conscience of persons of religious faith, or the convictions of any man with regard to what treatment that man must secure and pay for, is tyranny. The State should protect the public from dangerous instruments or poisonous drugs in the hands of incompetent persons, encourage wise sanitary regulations for preservation of public health, and leave the matter of choosing and paying for whatever medical attention or healing that is desired by the citizen to the citizen himself.

Send a comment to the editors