Article May 29, 1915 Issue

May I request sufficient space in which to correct a statement...

Campbell MacCulloch

Rochester (N. Y.) Union and Advertiser

May I request sufficient space in which to correct a statement in an editorial in a recent issue? You refer to the bill introduced at Albany to admit Christian Scientists to the practice of their religion in this state as if it were intended to abrogate or break down the safeguards that have been thrown about the medical practice act, and admit to practice in this state those "who have not had proper medical training."

May I point out that it is mere assumption that the only method of healing disease is purely material. Only long custom has brought about such a conclusion, and in point of fact the first healing of disease was spiritual, as Biblical history plainly shows. Moreover, the command of Jesus to preach the gospel and heal the sick was one command, and not separable; that it was so regarded; that it was fulfilled for three hundred years after the ascension of Jesus Christ, is plainly related in Gibbon's "History of the Roman Empire," which indicates that there was nothing miraculous or in the nature of a special dispensation about it.

Christian Scientists are not asking for the right to practise medicine in this or any other state; they are willing to leave that field to those competent to practise medicine. They are desirous of following the tenets of their religion, which the present medical practice act assumes to grant, and which provision was placed in the act of 1907 after consultation with the medical fraternity for the express purpose of not interfering with Christian Science practice.

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