Article May 11, 1912 Issue

Every well-informed physician knows that the drug system...

W. D. Gordon

Beaumont (Tex.) Journal

Every well-informed physician knows that the drug system is not a science. It has been in vogue for thousands of years and it is today nothing more or less than a system of experimentation. A cure which is heralded as a scientific discovery today finds its way to the scrap-heap tomorrow. This alone should condemn it as a system seeking to be entrenched with all the power and force of law in authority in this country.

A sneer is made in the remarks of the learned doctor whose address I quote from, as to those "who do not believe in anything, especially drugs." Many people do not believe in drugs. As I have stated, I do not believe in drugs for myself. I used them for more than twenty years for chronic stomach trouble, sometimes obtaining temporary relief, but the trouble was never overcome. During this time, in full accord with the system in which the doctor believes, I thought that it was foolish to suppose there was any other cure except through this system. I was finally led to try Christian Science treatment, and was completely healed. Since that time I have never taken drugs for any physical ailment, and I am sure that I do not want to be forced to do so. I do not believe in them and I do not want any system of medicine established in the legislation of this country that will make criminal every other system of healing but drugs, any more than I would want to outlaw that system of healing by legislation. It is a matter of individual liberty and freedom. The other fellow has a right to take all the drugs he wants in trying to get rid of his diseases. He should also have the right to refrain therefrom and to try any other system which can relieve him, and that privilege should be as inviolable as his right to serve one God or a hundred. He can worship his ancestors if he wants to, and no law can lay its hand upon him, under the pretext of conserving his spiritual welfare, and say that he shall worship one God or three.

This program of the "medical trust" is doomed to failure. It is un-American. That is why denunciation is taking the place of argument. It is already defeated. When this measure was before Congress last year, a great many of the best citizens of this city sent telegrams to their representatives in Congress, protesting against this bill. They are not "criminals," "renegades," "charlatans," "humbugs," nor "cranks." They are healthy, normal, and respectable citizens, and are intelligently opposing a scheme hatched by a coterie of political doctors who got control of the American Medical Association, and are using it as an instrument of political, rather than of scientific, agency.

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