Article May 9, 1914 Issue

Christian Science Practice

JUDGE CLIFFORD P. SMITH

Statutes which are really designed to regulate the practice of medicine and surgery—which contain no curiously wrought definitions of this phrase, extending it beyond its ordinary and natural meaning—do not apply to the practice of Christian Science. This has been decided by several courts; for instance, by the supreme court of Rhode Island (State v. Mylod, 20 R. I. Reports 632, 41 L. R. A. 428). But when a medical bill is under consideration, account should be taken of the fact that if it is passed the enforcement of the law will not be left to disinterested officers. Members of the profession from which all such bills emanate are always clothed with power to construe and administer the law and institute prosecutions. Therefore the language of a medical act needs to be carefully guarded in order to preserve the rights of the people, and the presence of broad and drastic terms calls for an express statement that the act does not affect the practice of Christian Science in particular or religion in general. A saving clause of this nature is valid and constitutional. This has been decided by the supreme court of Kansas (State v. Wilcox, 64 Kan. Reports 789) and the California court of appeals (Ex parte Bohannon, 14 Cal. App. Reports 321, 1111 Pac. Rep. 1039).

The sponsors of a medical bill sometimes try to prevent the insertion of a clause designed to preserve the rights of citizens who may prefer Christian Science, by arguing that such a provision would confer a special privilege on Christian Scientists. It should be observed, however, that the necessity for such a clause arises out of the effort of organized medicine to prohibit the practice of other systems of healing. The practice of medicine does not need to be defined by law, as more than one court has remarked; and it is mere effrontery for those who are asking for a monopoly to say that an effort to limit that monopoly constitutes a request for special privileges. No artificial advantage should be allowed; no monopoly should be established; the medical and surgical system should be made to stand or fall according to its merits. On the other hand, Christian Science is a distinct and well-known system, and it has rights as such; that is, those who can practise it have the right to do so, and those who may want Christian Science have the right to employ its practitioners.

Christian Scientists rely on the practice of their religion to prevent and cure disease, and for very good reasons. The principal reasons which obtain with most of them are these: 1. They have had need of relief from sin or sickness and have failed to obtain it by other means. 2. They have found Christian Science to be a superior curative agent, even curing the diseases which other systems deem incurable. 3. They believe it to be the divine curative agent which Christ Jesus used and commanded all his followers to use. 4. They believe that the practice of Christian Science will ultimately overcome and abolish evil and its effects and thus deliver the human race from sin and mortality. For these reasons and others—such, for instance, as the fear of ill effects from other alleged remedies—a large and ever-increasing number of intelligent and law-abiding citizens rely on Christian Science to prevent or cure disease, and others are constantly turning to it after other methods have failed to heal or relieve them.

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