Article March 15, 1913 Issue

If a citizen of Louisiana could be imprisoned for ninety...

Picayune

If a citizen of Louisiana could be imprisoned for ninety days, or made to pay a fine of one hundred dollars, or subjected to both penalties for making a prayer to God at the bedside of a sick person for the sufferer's recovery and restoration to health, anywhere in Louisiana, one of the most monstrous outrages upon human liberty and on freedom of conscience imaginable would be perpetrated in this highly civilized and enlightened state and city. And yet under an interpretation of a law of Louisiana an attempt to accomplish such an act was made in one of the criminal courts of New Orleans. Fortunately the case came before a highly intelligent and just judge, who refused to permit a statute of the state to revive the dark ages of religious persecution, and, after hearing the case and giving a most enlightened and admirable exposition of the law under which the prosecution was brought, he promptly gave judgment for the acquittal of the accused.

Act 244 of the Legislature of 1908 is a very stringent prohibition under penalties mentioned above of the practise of medicine or of any act of surgery by any person, whether for pay or gratuitously, who has not been duly licensed by the state. The law specifies that any person who prescribes, directs, or applies, for the purpose of treating, curing, or relieving any bodily or mental disease, infirmity, deformity, or of whatever nature, or any other agency or means, whether such drug, instrument, force, or other agency or means is to be applied or used by the patient, or by any other person, and whether such prescribing, directing, or applying be for compensation of any kind or be gratuitous, is practising medicine under the law, and if he or she be not duly authorized, will be subject to the punishment prescribed by the statute.

In the present case, a male citizen or resident who professes the form of religion held by the Christian Scientists, made a prayer for restoration to health over a sick child of parents who held to the same religion, but he administered no medicines, he performed no manipulations, and exhibited no instruments or apparatus of any sort. Some time afterward the child died, but the maker of the prayer, instead of being charged with the death of the little one through the use of some intangible and malevolent magic, was prosecuted upon a criminal charge of practising medicine without a license. It was truly an astonishing case in this republic, where freedom of conscience and of religious belief are guaranteed by the national Constitution, and in this twentieth century, when religion of any sort attracts little attention; but fortunately the case was treated by Judge Fisher in a manner so luminously complete and conclusive that it is not likely another arrest will be made here for uttering a prayer to God in aid of a sick person.

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