In a recent issue of your journal (p. 261) you quote with...

Samuel J. Macdonald, Committee on Publication for the State of New Jersey,

New Jersey Law Journal

In a recent issue of your journal (p. 261) you quote with approval a portion of an article which appeared in Law Notes for May, 1921, entitled "Faith Cures and the Law." Kindly allow me space for a brief comment thereon.

It is a comfortable and convenient mode of conducting a discussion, and no doubt also economical of time and space, to assume all one's premises; but it scarcely rises to the dignity of legal argument. It is not yet generally admitted in the legal profession, I trust, that petitio principii has a prominent and authoritative place in legal discussions. In the first place, I cannot and do not admit the assumption that "the majority, the overwhelming majority, of people in the United States now believe that medicine aids in the cure of disease, and that medical precautions do much to check the spread of contagion." Even the medical profession themselves no longer believe this. Let me cite only two out of many recent authoritative medical statements on this point.

About three years ago, in the city of Newark, New Jersey, a banquet was given by the Medical Society in honor of an M. D. who had been in practice in that city for more than fifty years. The honored guest in his speech naturally contrasted the practice of medicine when he began and at present. He said that when he began physicians were using almost all the medicines in the pharmacopœia, while now they are using less than one per cent. His speech was subsequently printed in extenso in The Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey; so it evidently met with the approval of his professional associates.

On June 15, 1921, at Atlantic City, at the Annual Meeting of the Medical Society of New Jersey, Martin J. Synnott, A.M., M.D., Lieut.-Col. M. R. C., U. S. A., formerly Chief of Medical Service, Camp Dix, delivered an oration entitled, "A Survey of Modern Medicine," the opening sentences of which were as follows:—

"The practice of medicine is very different to-day from twenty-five years ago. Then drugs were freely used and little or no attempt made at finer diagnosis. Our present knowledge teaches us that drugs are of very little assistance...."

This oration of Dr. Synnott was printed in full in The Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey, so it is clear that it met with the approval of the medical profession throughout the state, and of the editor of their official organ. Many similar statements of recognized medical authorities might be cited; but the foregoing should be sufficient to show that such assumptions as those made by the writer in Law Notes are too broad and sweeping to be reliable as the basis of legal argument. One need not go further and point to the immense popular following of osteopathy and chiropractic as additional evidence that popular belief in medicine is fast disappearing. Even the purchase of "patent medicines" is no longer evidence of a belief in medicine, but may be only founded upon a belief in their large alcoholic content.

But in the second place, the writer in Law Notes ignores the fact that in most of the states the legislatures have legalized the spiritual treatment of the sick by prayer, and also the practice of osteopathy and chiropractic. This being true, the question is no lnoger—if it ever was—one of "the majority opinion currently prevailing." Is it not now, instead, a question of law,—to wit, Whether each one of the present lawful modes of treating the sick is not lawful treatment for minors also? Or, stated differently, Where the legislature has authorized other treatments of the sick than by the use of material medicines, is not this a legislative construction of the term "medical attendance," enlarging it to include all lawful modes of treatment? One definition of "medical," given in Webster's "New International Dictionary," is as follows: "Of, pertaining to, or dealing with, the healing art, or the science of medicine;" and surely, in the eye of the law, every mode of the healing art which is authorized by law comes within this definition.

The question of the legal right of a parent to choose for his minor child the same mode of treatment for illness which it is lawful for him to rely upon for himself, cannot now be determined by reliance upon court decisions and judicial definitions pronounced long before legislatures had begun to recognize the enfranchisement of modern thought from drug enslavement. It should be considered and determined by weighing every advance of the best thought of the medical profession, as well as by a dispassionate discussion of the legal effect of the most recent legislative enactments. In this way we shall escape not only unnecessary assumptions but also preconceived opinions and prejudices.

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