Article September 1, 2013

Christian Science healing not medical practice

Clifford P. Smith

Originally published in the 1918 pamphlet “Christian Science healing not medical practice”

Christian Scientists have always spoken of medical doctors with respect. In the authorized literature of Christian Science it would be difficult to find an uncharitable or impertinent comment on any honest effort to prevent or cure disease. It would be impossible to find anything like the abusive attacks that medical representatives have made on Christian Science in Ohio and Ontario. It is necessary to say, however, that the medical profession, or that part of it which delights to speak of "cults and sects," is bent on getting a statutory monopoly of all services in relation to health. It is attempting to obtain the passage of statutes that would ultimately put the holders of that monopoly on the public pay roll and compel all other people to obey their orders. In short the medical profession, or a certain part of it, is determined to become a ruling class and to have all other people for its subjects.

Proof of these statements is not difficult to find in the published proceedings of medical organizations. No small amount of it has been furnished by and during the attempts of such organizations to stop the practice of Christian Science in Ohio and Ontario. And now that commissions to revise the medical acts of Ohio and Ontario have been appointed, the Christian Scientists thereof wish to present the foregoing and the following reasons why the statutes to be recommended should recognize these rights: (1) freedom from any statutory monopoly of all services for the benefit of health; (2) freedom from any statutory regulation that would be unreasonable or unnecessary; (3) entire freedom for the practice of the Christian religion. Such rights are recognized by any just or wise conception of government.

Concerning the practice of medicine, the first thing to be noticed is that it is based on diagnosis. "It is impossible to dissociate diagnosis from the practice of the art of healing by any physical, medical, mechanical, hygienic, or surgical means" (People vs. Jordan, 172 Cal. Rep. 391). "This is the most important and difficult element in the practice of medicine" (New International Encyclopedia, second edition, Vol. VI, p. 757). In the case of People vs. Allcutt, 117 App. Div. Rep. 546, the appellate division of the supreme court of New York declared that diagnosis is "the very corner stone of successful medical practice."

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