Editorial September 5, 1908 Issue

NO TRUST NEEDED

Archibald McLellan

Springfield (Mass.) Union

We clip the following from an editorial in the Springfield (Mass.) Union:—

Any movement to form a "doctor's trust," of which there appear to be some symptoms, will be severely frowned upon by the public. We are not willing to have the blessings of medicine and surgery cornered and run purely on a commercial basis. The tendency has been so long the other way that sentiment would not brook any such reaction. There is a disposition in many quarters to invoke legislation for the purpose of placing the public in more direct dependence upon the doctors. This is a tendency that may easily be carried too far, especially as the request for such legislation is generally accompanied by arguments advanced on other than business grounds, which appear more or less plausible, as in the case of the recent ruling of the Louisiana Board of Health prohibiting the refilling of prescriptions without a physician's order. The ignorant and indiscriminate use of drugs and medicines certainly should be discountenanced, and the only point we seek to emphasize is that mercenary considerations should not be allowed to intervene in a matter of this kind.

This editorial indicates that the public is at last waking up to the fact that medical legislation such as has been proposed in a number of the States in the past would be class legislation pure and simple. To place "the public in more direct dependence upon the doctors" has been the purpose of practically all of the medical bills that have been introduced in the legislatures in recent years and it is time that this purpose should be fully recognized and exposed.

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