Article September 13, 1913 Issue

The X-Ray Bulletin stands for "religious liberty," and that...

X-Ray Bulletin

The X-Ray Bulletin stands for "religious liberty," and that degree of "individual rights" attested by both the state and the federal constitutions. A Mrs. Edna Henson, who is a Christian Scientist, healed a man of paralysis in a little town (Canyon City) in Texas. The records show that she used no medicine; she just prayed that the sick man should get well, and he did. Last week she was arrested, and tried for practising medicine; not because she had practised medicine, but because she had prayed for a sick man. All honor to the Texas court and jury that acquitted her!

Within a year, one Robert Henderson was arrested in New Orleans, La., and given a trial for the same thing; because he had prayed for a sick somebody, he was compelled to stand trial under the same general conditions. At the conclusion of a careful summing up, the judge said in this case: "The accused has not violated any of the terms of the statute; he practised the religious tenets of his church, and such practise is under the very sanction of this law. He is entitled to respect rather than prosecution." It may be an aid to doctors, in the practise of medicine, to know how to pray; but we fail to understand how a license to practise medicine could be of benefit to any one in the matter of prayer. No recognized doctor wants to assume the right to do both and to give the Christian Scientists the right to do neither. The doctor may pray if he likes, when he gives his drugs, strong or weak, or uses lancet or ligature; but let the Christian Scientist pray, if he likes, undisturbed. There is no danger of his practising medicine; that is farthest from his thoughts. He will do no harm, and it appears that he has done good. While doctors disagree, people will choose for themselves how best to be healed of disease, and justly so.

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