Editorial April 12, 1913 Issue

PLACING THE RESPONSIBILITY

Archibald McLellan

Several weeks ago we called attention to a letter from a physician in which, although these are not the exact words in which he expressed his thought, he boasted somewhat of the fact that a certain other physician had been elected to the Legislature of his state solely because he was a physicians and would use his position as a legislator to further the interests of his colleagues in their efforts to prevent the people from employing any method of healing other than that which they dealt in. He also told how this physician was paid by his professional brethren for his work in their behalf while serving in the Legislature.

At this point it is perhaps a pardonable and pertinent question whether or not such practises come dangerously near that which many of the states have tried to prohibit through the "corrupt practises" laws which they have adopted, and whether or not these practises justify the editorial statement of the Albuquerque (N. Mex.) Journal, "that doctors should not be sent to the Legislature, because in practically all instances they cease to be representatives of their constituents and become representatives of the medical fraternity."

In another editorial the Journal calls attention to a bill, now pending in the New Mexico Legislature, which the physicians who are urging its passage say "will not interfere with the practise by Christian Scientists; that it will merely subject them to regulation." This regulation, according to the Journal, would "consist of a four-years course at an orthodox medical school, a diploma from the same, and an examination by a board of hostile physicians." It should be borne in mind, however, that the public is not asking for such drastic legislation, and that the reason given by the doctors in their own trade journals for its advocay is that their own financial interests demand laws which, speaking plainly, will give them a trade monopoly. This is precisely the same course which in the past has been pursued by large corporate interests in the commercial field, and has led to the political downfall of a number of public men when their secret employment and affiliations were exposed.

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