Article May 11, 1912 Issue

In a recent issue you reported a discussion before the...

Alfred Farlow—Madison, Wis.

State Journal

In a recent issue you reported a discussion before the Saturday Lunch Club which contains the complaint that state legislatures refuse "to enact laws guarding the health of the people, because the Christian Scientists and League for Medical Freedom object to them." The writer is thoroughly familiar with the history of the Christian Science movement up to the present time and is therefore prepared to assure your readers that Christian Scientists never have opposed legislative enactments which could properly be construed as in the interest of public health. Their opposition has been confined exclusively to efforts which have been made by the political portion of the medical fraternity to monopolize the treatment of the sick. We use the term "political portion" advisedly and for the reason that we are aware that the broad-minded and philanthropic portion of the medical fratenity does not favor any such monopolistic methods. In some states attempts have been made to weave into the state laws a definition of medical practice that is sufficiently broad to include all sorts of non-medical practice, and then to exact from those who they insist are not regular practitioners the qualifications of a regular medical practitioner. This amounts to an indirect method of insisting that no one shall have the privilege of treating the sick except the drug practitioners.

Many business institutions have sought legal sanction and protection, but it seems to have been left to the political faction of the medical fraternity to undertake the monopoly of treating the sick by asking the government to give them the entire field by legislating out of the field those whom they believe to be their competitors. If the medical fraternity will confine itself to efforts in behalf of those particular interests upon which the general public agrees, it will find the Christian Scientists ready to cooperate with it. That is to say, Christian Scientists are in favor of sensible sanitation, they are in favor of any measure which will tend to remove the fundamental causes of disease. It cannot be denied that cleanliness of mind and body are the essentials of health, that the morality of the community must be uplifted, that dissipation of every sort must be eliminated in order that health may be assured. But when it comes to the question of how the sick shall be treated, there is no universal agreement, nor at the present time even an approximation thereto, and it would be decidedly unfair to hamper the right of experimentation by legislative enforcement. It has been said by statisticians who have made a special study of the subject, that from one fourth to one fifth of the entire population of this country does not believe in the use of drugs at all but belongs to what has been termed the "non-drugging" classes, and that this number is rapidly increasing, while the numbers of those who rely upon drugs as a means of curing the sick are rapidly decreasing. If we may judge from their action, no doubt some of our doctor friends also are aware of this fact, hence their haste to regulate the public faith in medicine by legal enactment.

Your report declares in substance that the chief executive of our country "has recently opened the isthmus of Panama to Christian Scientists for the supposed cure of disease." As a matter of fact, the Christian Scientists have always had the privilege of treating the sick in the Canal Zone. It was not necessary that the President should create such a privilege, since it already existed. What he did was to refuse to uncreate it. He refused endorsement of an order which was so framed as to prohibit the practice of Christian Science, and we are sure that an overwhelming majority of the public commended his broad-mindedness when he refused to assume the stupendous responsibility of establishing state medicine.

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