Article April 1, 1922 Issue

What the Ontario Medical Society demands in its memorial...

Herald

What the Ontario Medical Society demands in its memorial to the Ontario government is, virtually, a monopoly for the "regular" doctors in the practice of healing the sick and treating the injured. The government is asked to forbid anybody to engage in such practice who has not a license from the Ontario college of physicians and surgeons. Osteopaths, chiropractors, and all "drugless healers" are specifically condemned, as are also Christian Science healers. Chiropractic is described as "a system of gross and pitiable ignorance." Objection is made to osteopathy on the ground that it is merely one phase of therapeutics and is often applied ignorantly by practitioners "to the grievous detriment of those so treated." With regard to Christian Science the memorial says that its teachings "reveal a deplorable condition of ignorance about diseases, injuries, matter, and therapeutics," and that they are a "positive menace to the public."...

In the religious field centuries ago, the same spirit bore fruit in hideous persecutions and devastating wars. Weemeaning men, quite persuaded that their own creed was true and all others were false and mischievous, did all in their power to extirpate the other creeds by killing, torturing, mutilating, or imprisoning those who professed them; also by putting those creeds under the ban of the law. But experience proved that such methods were not very successful. Common sense as well as the sense of fair play gradually compelled mankind to recognize the wisdom of tolerance and freedom in matters of religion.

And in the field of medicine the wisdom or expediency of attempting to suppress by law every new and strange school of healing that arises is more than doubtful. If it be based on ignorance and falsehood it will not have the vitality to last. It will soon be found out and its dupes will be all the more willing to rely upon genuine medical science. But people who have more faith in osteopathy, chiropractic, or Christian Science than in the traditional school of medicine should have the right to be treated, when they are ill, by the practitioners of their choice and according to the system in which they have faith. To deprive them of this right is to interfere arbitrarily with personal liberty.

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