Editorial July 22, 1911 Issue

PUBLIC SENTIMENT AWAKENED

Archibald McLellan

That public sentiment is awakening to the real meaning and purpose of the legislation which the doctors have been trying to get through Congress for the past year or two, and which they have advocated in their own interest for something like twenty years, is apparent from the number of newspaper editorials which have recently appeared, calling attention to the danger of further adding to government paternalism for the benefit of the few. A particularly pertinent editorial appeared in The San Francisco Call a few days ago, and we clip from it the following paragraphs:

Generally speaking, the public is disposed to regard with some suspicion the movement for the creation of a federal health department with searching and extreme powers of regulation and restriction. ...

It is a distinct abridgment of the liberty of the citizen when one medical school or another sets up to impose its doctrines and practices on the whole people. The practitioners are no more able to agree among themselves about what is right and what is sound medical doctrine than are the theologians, and yet some of them seek to install a so-called scientific tribunal, sitting in judgement ex-cathedra and delivering decrees with all the force of federal powers behind them. The nation might with equal logic institute a department of theology, which would lay down such dogmas and practices as the American public would be constrained to accept under penalty.

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