Editorial September 19, 1914 Issue

And Again Legislation

Archibald McLellan

In the August 20 issue of Life, attention is called to the efforts of organized physicians to secure legislation such as they desire, obstensibly for the public interest. We quote from Life as follows:—

"At a recent meeting of the American Medical Association at Atlantic City, fifteen reasons were advanced for the establishment of a national department of health. Among these perhaps the best one—from the medical standpoint—is that which states, 'To influence state and city authorities to enact reform legislation to relation to health matters.' The kind and quality of legislation to be enacted would of course be determined by the doctors themselves. They would quite naturally not be willing to admit that anybody else is competent ... This is a beautiful system ... It aims for nothing less than the direct control of the health, the liberty, and the person of every American, whether male or female."

As the bulk of medical legislation asked for by the medical societies in the past has included a definition of the practice of medicine drawn in such terms as would include all who heal the sick, whether by medical treatment or not, there can be but little doubt of the correctness of Life's conclusion. The intention of such proposed legislation is to make it a crime for any person who is not a physician, in the most limited sense of that term, to attempt to heal the sick; but inasmuch as the only person who ever healed all manner of disease and never failed to heal those who applied to him, was not a physician, and did not practise the system which the American Medical Association stands for, it would certainly seem that to create a monopoly in favor of and at the behest of physicians who have never equaled this record, is not in the interest of the people.

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