Article July 22, 1911 Issue

MEDICINE AND THE STATE

HON. CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK.

Let us suppose that a man allows himself to get into a prolonged state of jealous anger, and thereby falls sick. The matter-physician is called to the sick man's bedside and discovers an accelerated pulse, a coated tongue, and other physical effects; whereupon he opines that he has made a needed diagnosis on which he can determine the size, frequency, and contents of the pellets of an inert and non-intelligent drug which he will put into the sick man's stomach in the experimental effort to restore him to physical harmony. If the man's jealous anger sufficiently subsides he will probably get better and finally be comparatively well, and the doctor and his diagnosis and drugs will receive the credit therefor. If the man be slow in recovering, the doctor will feel his pulse, look at his tongue again, and decide that he will try some other drug. If the man's anger in the mean time does not subside the bad symptoms which the doctor has been diagnosing (which withal are only effects and not cause) will continue; and other doctors may be called into a consultation. What for? To look again at the patient's tongue, et cetera, and decide upon a "change of treatment;" that is, a change of experimentation. Meanwhile, the patient's vigor is being undermined in various ways, especially by the weakening influence of fear.

Alas! how long will the countless victims of material thought remain content with so unspiritual and so inadequate an order and those who champion its rule be regarded with obsequious respect when they seek legislative aid to discourage and prevent the methods for overcoming sickness which were proven trustworthy by Jesus and his followers? Is it not evident that the right way to diagnose a case is to inquire into and discern the mental cause of the physical inharmony, instead of observing simply physical effects or symptoms? Moreover, is it not unquestionably true that no pill or other material remedy can destroy the mental cause of sickness? and is it not perfectly rational to assume that the remedy for mental discords is the true and right remedy for sequent physical discords? And yet, if this be so, what excuse or apology can be offered in behalf of those who would unite medicine and legislative authority to destroy that freedom of religious conscience and that enjoyment of personal liberty which the fathers so jealously guarded in the constitution of the United States?

It cannot be truly said that the cases of physical sicknesses which are to be traced unquestionably to mental causes are negligible in their number. The observations and often the personal experiences of most adult persons, if they will consider the subject without prejudice, lead to the conviction that such cases, on the contrary, are noticeably numerous, even if the contention of Christian Scientists that the primary cause of physical discord is mental rather than physical be disregarded. Are such cases to be consigned by legislative enactment to drug or other material treatment, and the opportunities for mental treatment be restricted and limited by law? Would not such a monopoly in behalf of the drug physicians, created and sanctioned by law, be quite as tyrannous and unjustified as the creation and sanction by our laws of a monopoly of religious privileges in behalf of some particular religious denomination? In fact, to limit by law the opportunities of the citizen to worship God as his conscience teaches him is essentially the same thing as wholly to forbid him to worship God as his conscience teaches him. Likewise in fact to limit by law the opportunities of the citizen to have the remedial system for sicknesses in his home and in his own person which his conscience and judgment teach him to be most trustworthy is essentially the same thing as wholly to forbid by law his recourse to such remedial system.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

MEDICINE AND THE STATE

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access