Article December 2, 1916 Issue

The court of appeals has ordered a new trial for Willis Vernon Cole...

Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eagle

The court of appeals has ordered a new trial for Willis Vernon Cole, accused of "practising medicine without a license." As the court of last resort throws out all the supposed theories of law on which Cole was convicted, this means victory in the state of New York for the Christian Scientists. So long as they are following the tenets of their religion they may cure people by prayer if they can, and take money for the praying. Of course, it is a laughable travesty on "prompt justice," a desideratum emphasized ever since the Magna Charta, to the more than four years taken up with the settlement of this issue by the courts.

Nobody is compelled to go to a Christian Scientists. The principle of caveat emptor governs. If you choose to spend your cash for prayers, that is your affair. The Scientist does not do anything that aggravates the complaint; he does not administer drugs; and even though failing to cure, he may give mental comfort that is worth all it costs.

The decision is that the "religious tenets" exception in the statute covers Christian Science, and that healing people without a license is not a malum in se, under the common law. Chief Justice Bartlett went further than the majority of the court. He said, "I deny the power of the legislature to make it a crime to treat disease by prayer." Certainly the trend of sentiment, even among those who are not Christian Scientists, is toward the Bartlett view. There is a growing resentment of the notion that medical men and their medicine are sacrosanct.

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