n ed. W8i THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES TO ESTABLISH AN INDEPENDENT HEALTH SERVICE Wb'-n n question like this confronts u.s the people of this country '.n<1 r look to their liberties. "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is not a medical !>:nly, his n<> right to a medical opinion, and should not dare take sides in medical controversies." Prof. William James. .Ir-jis of Nazareth was persecuted and finally crucified for ^rencnrng spel and practicing his religious belief by healing the sielc. To -Jrtine to-day in the twentieth century in the great State nt New York, ii' he were here, would make him a criminal suhject to line and imprisonment by the laws of that State. SPEECH OF HON. JOHN JV WORKS OF SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES MONDAY AND TUESDAY, AITJL 29 AND 30, 1912 WASHINGTON 410J7 lOOr.9 53 SPEECH OF HON. JOHN D. WORKS, Monday and Tuesday, April 29 and 30, 1912, On tho bill (S. 1) to establish an independent Health Service, and for other purposes Mr. WOKKS said: Mr. PRESIDENT : I had tho honor, soon after I became a Mem- ber of this body, to discuss this bill from the standpoint of Christian Scientists, to whom, in its then form, it was most ob- jectionable. Since then it has been amended in a number. of material particulars, relieving it, in some respects, from the objections then urged against it. At this time I desire to con- sider it in a broader and more comprehensive way, as it affects not Christian Scientists alone but the whole people. This will necessarily lead me to comment not only upon the bill as it appears on its face, but upon the forces and motives behind it, and the ultimate objects and purposes of this movement, who want it, and what for. I am sorry that I feel myself impelled by a sense of duty to say some unpleasant things, but I shall say them as pleasantly as I can, and without any intention of giving offense. I shall have to question and challenge some of the most cherished be- liefs and convictions of Members of this body and of many other good people, convictions sincerely and honestly enter- tained by them. But I am happy to say that I entertain no sense of malice, hatred, or ill will toward any human being, alive or dead, or of unfriendly antagonism toward the views, honestly entertained, of any man. I.- shall not hesitate, how- ever, to speak uiy own convictions freely and frankly and to point out and comment without, reserve upon some of the evils that are attempted to be maintained and perpetuated by this bill and legislation which is expected to follow it. I shall feel myself called upon to assail the motives and conduct of members of the medical profession, in their organ- ized form, as the American Medical Association. But this is in no sense a personal matter, nor is it prompted by any sense of ill will. There are many high-minded, noble, self-sacri (icing men and women in the profession who are conscientiously de voting their lives to the healing of disease and the amelioration of human suffering. In what I shall say on this subject, I am not speaking of such as these, but of the self-seeking, intolerant political doctors who are serving their own sellish interests and not the public good. The avowed purpose of seeking new legislation was, in the beginning, to establish a department of (Jovernmeut with a 41917 109G9 doctor of medicine at its head, a member of the President's Cabinet, possessed of the almost autocratic, unlimited, and unrestrained power belonging to such a department. This movement was instigated and maintained by the American Medical Association, one of the most powerful trusts, in its management, in the country. While there were many sincere and honest, but misguided, people inside and outside of the association behind it, the motive power which was pressing it forward was this political branch of the association. Its officials and agents, with their powerful organization, were simply using its members and others less selfish and unpopular to de- ceive the public and Congress and conceal the real motives that actuated the effort. This motive and the real object, purely selfish on their part, were studiously and skillfully concealed under the mask of humanitarianism. The League for Medical Freedom, a voluntary organization composed of hundreds of thousands of citizens of all classes in all walks of life, knowing the hypocrisy of the instigators of new legislation on this sub- ject, made common cause against it and have exposed its ob- jects and pointed out the injurious effects of the passage of the proposed bill. One of the chief causes of complaint was that it would create a monopoly in one school of medicine, with one of their number, a Cabinet officer, at its head, to the exclu- sion of every other school of medicine or other modes of healing. This purpose was disclaimed by the author of the bill, the Sen- ator from Oklahoma [Mr. OWEN], but the form of the bill, the fact that then and now all surgeons and other medical em- ployees of the Government were and are of that school of medicine, to the exclusion of all others, and the declarations of parties interested in the bill as to their ultimate object and purpose in urging the passage of it showed conclusively that the Senator from Oklahoma was entirely mistaken. It became so apparent that such was the purpose, and it was so obnoxious to every man who believes in medical as well as religious freedom, that friends of the bill voluntarily offered the following amendment to relieve it from this objection which they soon found would defeat it : And provided further, That the bureau of health established by this act shall have no power to regulate the practice of medicine or the practice of healing or to interfere with the right of a citizen to employ the practitioner of his choice, and all appointments within the bureau, including the head of the bureau, shall be made without discrimination against any school of medicine or of healing. They soon found, also, that the effort to secure a place in the Cabinet and make the health bureau a department of the Government was hopeless, and that was abandoned. Thus shorn of the things they most desired, the bill has be- come unnecessary and useless. It adds no power to the several bureaus in the different departments intended to protect and preserve the public health, and can not increase their activities, except that of collecting and disseminating information. There- fore, if I did not know that this abandonment of the objection- able features of the bill was for the ulterior purpose of making it a beginning and then following it up step by step until they have attained their original object, which they could not reach 41917 109G9 by direct action, I should have but little reason to consume the time of the Senate in opposing its passage. But, Mr. President, I know what I am talking about when I say to the Senate that they have never abandoned their original purpose of taking over into their own hands the medical activ- ities of the Government and of confining their administration and the enforcement of their powers in the one school of medi- cine to the exclusion of all others. As I shall show the Senate a little later, some of these doctors and their publications, less discreet than some others, have made the most startling state- ments of their intention to establish and control a state medi- cine in its most extreme and objectionable form. Since the bill has been amended, as I have stated, I said to one of the most earnest supporters of the idea of a department of medicine, and a distinguished citizen and educator, " Why do you want this bill in its amended form? It -does not increase the powers of the medical bureaus or accomplish anything you want." He said, " It is not satisfactory to us, but it will be a beginning and we will follow it up until we get what we want," or words to that effect. This was a frank and perfectly honest declaration of their purpose and intention, and their reason, and the only plausible reason, for accepting a bill with everything that they really wanted taken out of it by amendment. Therefore, Mr. President, I am going to consider this bill precisely as if it provided in terms for the things to which I so seriously object, because that is the ultimate purpose which should be met at the outset, and this bill is only one step to- ward its final accomplishment. But for the final object in view the bill would not be worth the attention of its alleged friends. Mr. President, there are various healing agencies at work in this country to-day. Some are schools of medical healing which depend upon drugs as the means of cure. Others depend upon manipulation of the body ; others depend upon the action of one mind upon another as a means of healing ; and still an- other upon the operation of the Divine mind in the establish- ment of harmony, the regeneration of man and his restoration to health by that means. To the latter the use of drugs is regarded as a menace to life and health and opposed to their conscientious religious beliefs. These different schools and other modes of healing may be divided into groups. It is impossible in the scope of such an address as this to consider or even mention them all. I will, therefore, confine myself to a few of the leading ones of each class. In the schools of healing by drugs may be named tho allopaths, the homeopaths, and the eclectics. The healing by the action of one mind over another may be classed under the general designation of mesmerism, hypnotism, or suggestHn all meaning practically the same thing and Christian Science, the one distinctive mode of healing by the operation of the Divine mind according to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. No two of these schools of medicine, or other modes of heal- ing, agree with each other. While some of them agree in the use of drugs as a means of healing, they are entirely at variance as to the kinds of medicines to be used, the quantity to be ad- ministered, and the principle upon which the system of drug 41917 109G9 6 healing is based. The allopathic school of medicine is the oldest and best known. Its devotees are wholly dogmatic and intoler- ant. They assume I Ii.it ("..ore is no other efficacious mode of healing but theirs, and that all other practitioners are incom- petents and a menace to the public health. They have formed one of the most powerful organizations of any kind in the country. They are ruthlessly using that power not to improve the practitioners of their own school only but to coerce all people to accept their remedies and to suppress, by law and by persecution, the practice of other means of healing. The American Medical Association is working in every State in the Union to secure laws which will prevent any but practitioners of their school from practicing the art of healing. They have secured such laws in some of the States, as I shall show farther along, and are tireless in their efforts to secxire other like re- strictive laws in all other States. Having only partially suc- ceeded in their efforts in this direction in the States, they have for a long time been besieging Congress to help them to entrench themselves with all the powers of the Government behind them where they will be supreme and may absolutely exclude all other practitioners than theirs from the practice of healing. They are using all the money and influence they can bring to bear and are practicing on the credulity of an ignorant public sentiment by the pretense that all of this is for the public good. Through their efforts the much-dreaded practice of vaccination, which has, in my opinion, sacrificed more lives than it has saved and maimed and made invalids of thousands, has been made compulsory by law ; and now other serum remedies, alleged to be preventives of various diseases and equally dangerous, loath- some, and objectionable, are being forced upon the people whether they want them or not. The officers of the Army and Navy are the willing instruments of these medical men to compel American citizens to submit to be poisoned with their loathsome preparations. If a soldier or sailor refuses to submit to vaccination or other serum treat- ment for typhoid fever and other diseases, he is promptly dis- missed the service, or placed in irons until he submits, or is otherwise punished. And now these doctors want Congress to so legislate as to give them full control of the medical, sani- tary, and hygienic activities and bureaus of the Government that their powers may be complete. The doctors of this school hold every medical position in the Government, to the exclusion of every other school, and no one who believes in the prevention or healing of disease by any other means than theirs need apply. Mr. President, the one great trouble is that the people do not think for themselves in any matter affecting the public health. They have preferred to rely upon the doctors and to be guided and controlled by them. Public officials and the Congress of the United States do not trouble themselves about it or hold themselves responsible. They generally evince a sublime indif- ference to the subject beyond what the doctors say or recom- mend, and the people are fleeced of millions of dollars in al- leged works for the public health which had better be thrown away. They have much more faith in the doctors than the doctors have in themselves or in each other. The competent 4191710969 doctor has long since learned that drugs are a poison and that they do not heal. Consequently the conscientious doctor no longer gives or advises the giving or taking of drugs. But the incompetent and selfish and unworthy still makes his living that way. The allopathic school of medicine is noted for the quantity of medicines they administer and their nauseous and distasteful character so much so that their mode of treatment is often characterized as cruel and inhuman. So deleterious and harm- ful are their drugs that the homeopaths claim that a large part cf their practice comes from those who have temporarily or permanently suffered from the effects of allopathic drugs. But I am glad to say that the better and more intelligent physicians of their school have given up the use of their strong drugs in a great degree. Their experience has taught them that such drugs do not heal, but engender and cause disease. Let us hope that they may soon reach that degree of intelligence that will lead them to cease the use of any drugs altogether. It would be a blessing to the human race if they would at the same time teach their patients to know what they have learned, that an inanimate drug has no healing quality and had better not be used. The people have been erroneously taught to rely upon drugs for their healing and have blindly believed in them so long that to deprive them of them would be disastrous until they learn that lesson. Drugs and the drug doctors' ministra- tion of them have healed disease only because of the faith of the patient in the doctor and his drugs, and for no other reason. Doctors themselves bear witness to this fact. In speaking of this subject, Dr. William Osier, formerly of Johns Hopkins Medical School, in an article in the Americana, uses this language : Yet after all the psychical method has always played an Important though largely unrecognized part in therapeutics. It is from faith, which buoys up the spirits, sets the blood flowing more freely, and the nerves playing their parts without disturbance, that a large part of all cures arises. Despondency, or lack of faith, will often sink the stoutest constitution almost to death's door ; faith will enable a bread pill or a spoonful of clear water to do almost miracles of healing when the best medicines have been given over in despair. The basis of the entire profession of medicine is faith in the doctor and his drugs and his methods. This is no new discovery. It was said by Galen that " he works the most cures in whom most have faith," and the doctor-chemist- charlatan Paracelsus, who died of taking a universal panacea too poisonous even for his confidence, told his patients to have full faith and a strong imagination and they would see the effects of it. This is strong language to come from such a source. The truth of it will not be denied by any well-informed and con- scientious medical practitioner. I ask the Senate to consider carefully this one statement con- tained in this article : The basis of the entire profession of medicine is faith in the doctor and his drugs and his methods. That is a remarkable statement. It comes from an eminent and noted medical practitioner of the allopathic school, and is a permanent contribution to the mass of information on the subject that can not be entered upon here, appearing as it does in one of the lending modern encyclopedias. 41017 10009 8 Mr. President, I may be pardoned if I stop here to point out the difference between the patients of medical practitioners and Christian Scientists in respect of this question of faith. The believer in the doctor and his drugs has faith in a human being and his means of cure, while the Christian Scientist has un- shaken and supreme faith in the omnipotence and beneficent influence of the Divine Being in the healing of disease. I leave it to the candid judgment of Senators to say which of these is most worthy of faith and trust. But the Christian Scientist does not rest on faith alone, but upon such understanding as he has of the power of God to heal and upon good works by which that healing may be brought about. The drugging system of the homeopathic school cf medicine is entirely different from that of the allopathic school and is founded on a wholly different principle. I have no doubt its rise was largely due to the protest against the cruel and in- human practices of the old school. There are some commendable features of homeopathic medica- tion as compared with the old school. Their medicines are less in quantity and not so nauseous or distasteful, and while they can no more heal disease, except by faith, than can the allo- pathic drugs, they are far less injurious to the human system. They are less harmful to humanity, and that is a good deal. Then came the modern school of eclectics. The theory of practice adopted by this school is entirely different from the others. Its founder and his followers were still searching for a better means of healing disease and saving human life. And still mankind is not satisfied. It is beginning to be under- stood now by all medical practitioners that the one great thing to be done is not to heal disease, in which they have signally failed, but to prevent it. They have learned, too, that the way to prevent disease is not by the. use of drugs, in the form of serums or otherwise, but in removing the extraneous causes of disease and preventing them from reaching the human body. It is generally believed by all civilized and enlightened people that lack of sanitation is, as men see things, one of the most prolific causes of disease and death. To this all schools of medicine and healing agree. Veritably cleanliness is next to godliness. But sanitation is not so much the work of the doctors or other practitioners as it is of the skilled sanitary engineer. It is claimed to have been discovered that the sting of the mosquito causes yellow fever, the bite of the fly typhoid fever, and that the ground squirrel is the carrier of bubonic plague. What is the remedy? Obviously, to exterminate the mosquito, the fly, and the ground squirrel. This does not require the services of a doctor or the use of a drug. When either of these breeders and disseminators of disease escapes and the disease is trans- mitted to the human body, the doctor, with his drugs, is help- less to give relief. Going a little further in respect of the different modes of healing, we have the osteopathic school. It does not rely upon or use drugs, but relies on the intrinsic powers of the human body itself to restore healthy conditions. We have also the practice of hypnotism, mesmerism, and suggestion. This alleged means of healing, including " sugges- tion," so called, is very largely used now by the old-school phy- 4191710009 9 sician. It is an admission of the inefficacy of drugs. But it is even more dangerous in its use than the drugs themselves. In 18GG the principle of healing, which is known as Christian Science, came into use, and is very generally practiced. It, too, discards the use of drugs. Unlike all the other modes of healing that I have mentioned, it is religious in its character. The healing is not its religion, but is incidental to and results from its religion. Its healing is not confined to its own religious believers, but is open to all men. MOTIVE FOE ACTIVITY OF AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATIOX. There is abundant evidence, which can not be reviewed here, that the efforts of the American Medical Association to secure restrictive legislation affecting other schools of healing and legislation giving its school additional powers and privileges are selfish in the extreme and intolerant and oppressive, as I shall show further along. The motive of this is not far to seek. Of later years, not only have the more modern schools of medi- cine encroached upon the business of the allopathic doctors and interfered with their receipts, but thousands yes, millions of people in this country have learned not to use medicines in any form, much to their advantage in the way of economy and bet- ter health. As a result, inroads of the most serious nature have been made on the doctor's business and profits, besides bringing their practice into serious discredit. It was perfectly apparent that something must be done to save their credit and prevent the overthrow of their system of practice. It was a desperate case, and they have resorted to desperate and ques- tionable means to protect their profession from ruin. This movement is not in the interest of humanity, as they would have us believe, but to uphold the prestige and protect the re- sources of the doctors of the old school of medicine. Their own declarations prove this beyond controversy. I shall a little further along submit for the consideration of the Senate some of their own declarations to that effect, to which others, almost without number, might be added, if it were necessary, coupled with the most startling statements of the extraordinary means resorted to to accomplish their object. There is no public demand for this legislation. There is no sentiment in favor of it except that of one school of medicine and such as they have manufactured in their own selfish in- terests under the hypocritical pretense that it is for the public good. HOW THEY OPERATE, f The doctors of the old school had possession. The people had become dependent upon them for help because they had not yet learned a better way. It was the fear that they would find a better way that spurred them to action. They have not been willing to stand upon their merits and be judged by their fruits; they have fought and persecuted evei-y new school or mode of healing. They have appealed to the legislatures of the States for laws that were prohibitory of other schools and making the practice of medicine by them a crime, and have succeeded in many of the States in procuring such legislation. Their favorite scheme is to have established a board of health in every State, 4191710969 and very county in every State, composed of doctors of their school, and then procure a law making it a criminal offense to practice medicine or healing without first securing a license to practice from their board of health. They opposed and perse- cuted the homeopaths, the eclectics, and the ost*?opaths in turn, denouncing them as charlatans, quacks, and incompetents. None of these could, in the beginning of these tactics, procure one of their licenses to practice. But this did not work very long. As these other schools of medicine became stronger and better ap- preciated by the people legislatures refused to pass these pro- hibitory laws, and governors of States sometimes vetoed them if they were passed. The new schools have forced their way into public favor, notwithstanding all this unjust opposition, and now other schools of medicine are given places on boards of health and applicants for licenses to practice by physicians of their schools are given separate examinations by members of their own pro- fession. Every new school or method of healing has been com- pelled to meet with this same kind of unjust opposition and per- secution, and much of it has been accomplished through the legislatures of the States. Many of the better class of allo- pathic physicians have deplored and opposed this mode of meet- ing opposition. It has been done mostly by and through the American Medical Association. To secure such restrictive and prohibitory legislation has been one of the chief objects of the association. Of later years their efforts have been directed more particularly against the Christian Scientists. The associa- tion has its branches and emissaries in every State and every city of any size in every State, They infest the legislatures of every State in the Union and present bills at every session until they succeed in securing the restrictive laws they want At this present day they generally fail, but they continue their efforts with an energy and persistency worthy of a better cause. In some of the States, notably in Maryland, Ohio, and Missouri, they have made it a crime for a Christian Scientist to practice healing or to accept compensation therefor. A conspicuous illustration of their methods may be found in a late order procured by the doctors affecting the Panama Canal Zone. They had an allopathic board of health, with a former president of the American Medical Association at its head. They procured from the President an order in the following form : EXECUTIVE ORDER TO PROHIBIT THK PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. SORCERY, DENTISTRY, PHARMACY, OK MIDWIFERY WITHOUT A LICENSE. By virtue of the authority vested la me, I hereby establish the fol- lowing order for the Canal Zone : SECTION 1. It shall be unlawful for any person to practice or attempt to practice medicine, surgery, deptistry. pharmacy, or midwifery within the Canal Zone without first having obtained a' license therefor from the Board of Health of the Canal Zone. Any person thus offending shall be punished by a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars ($25) or by imprisonment in jail not exceeding thirty (30) days, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court : Provided. That tui.s order shall not apply to commissioned surgeons of the United States Army, and Navy or Marine-Hospital Service, nor to physicians, surgeons, dentists, or pharmacists and their assistants and nurses employed by the Isthmian Canal Commission, nor to nurses acting under the orders of a licensed physician SEC. 2. Any person shall be regn rd>-d as practicing medicine within the meaning of this order who shall prescribe for, operate on, or in 41017 1090ft 11 any wise attempt to heal, cure, or alleviate, or who shall In any wise treat any disease or any physical or mental ailment of another : Provided, That nothing in this order shall be construed to prohibit gratuitous services iu case of emergency or to the administering of ordinary household remedies. SEC. 3. This order shall take effect sixty (60) days from and after this date. WM. H. TAFT. THE WHITE HOUSE, October H, 1911. It will be seen that they so defined the practice of medicine in this order as to make it a crime to attempt to ameliorate sickness or disease in any form or by any means other than their own. Section 2 of the order would have had the effect to exclude from practice in the Canal Zone every school of medicine except the allopathic school, including Christian Scientists and any and all persons who attempted to cure disease or alleviate suffering in any way by prayer or any means not included in the term " practicing medicine." Section 3 provided in express terms " that any person shall be regarded as practicing medicine within the meaning of this order who shall in any wise attempt to heal, cure, or alleviate, or who shall in any wise treat any disease or any physical or mental ailment of another." There was no exemption what- ever made of any mode of treatment. The evident purpose of the order, as drawn, was to give the allopathic school of medi- cine absolute and unlimited control of medical affairs in the Canal Zone to the exclusion of every other mode of healing. When the attention of the President was called to this fact he said at once that he had understood that Christian Scientists were not to be disturbed in their practice by the order, and that if it could be construed as having that effect he would see that it was modified. The matter was taken up with the President and the Secretary of War, who gave it the most careful and con- scientious attention, and finally modified the order by inserting the following clause : Provided, That nothing in this order shall be construed to prohibit (a) the practice of the religious tenets of any church in the adminis- tration of the sick or suffering by mental or spiritual means without the use of any drug or material remedy, whether gratuitously or for compensation, provided that such sanitary laws, orders, rules, and regulations as now are, or hereafter may be, in force in said Canal Zone are complied with. Christian Scientists made no objection to the provision in the order protecting the sanitary regulations of the Canal Zone and their enforcement, but frankly said to the President and Secre- tary of War that they believed in sanitation, and that the order might be made as strong with respect to that matter as they de- sired to have it. But, Mr. President, this Canal Zone order was not the only law, by many, obtained and attempted to be obtained by the American Medical Association. Every State in the Union has some law regulating the practice of medicine and surgery, and every State has a State board of health or examiners from whom a license must be obtained to entitle anyone to practice medicine or surgery. The doctors have gone to extraordinary lengths in the attempt to protect themselves in a monopoly of healing and to exclude from the exercise of their rights all other modes of 41017 109G9 healing than their own. In the procurement of boards of health, either State or county, the allopathic physicians, acting through the American Medical Association, usually have boards com- posed solely of their school of medicine, or, if other schools are allowed to be represented, as they are now in many of the States, the allopathic school, usually called by themselves " reg- ulars," invariably have there a majority or a greater number of members on the board than that of any other school of medicine. In some of the States separate boards of examiners or health boards are provided for three different schools of medicine, namely, the regular or allopathic school, homeopaths, and eclec- tics. But in no instance, so far as I know, is a majority of members, where there is but one board, given to any but the regular school. Having procured a board of examiners, or board of health, as they are sometimes called, they seek legislation in the different States providing that no one shall practice medi- cine or surgery until they have procured a license so to do from such board. To this Christian Scientists would make no objec- tion, as they are not practicing medicine or surgery, and their mode of treatment is not within the scope of the title to these various bills. They are almost invariably given the title of bills " to regulate the practice of medicine and surgery," and some- times midwifery, as indicated in the title. But they meet this situation by providing expressly what shall be included in the term " practice of medicine and surgery," and so define the term as to include modes of healing and practice that are not within the meaning of the words at all. It may be interesting to the Senate to follow in a brief way the course of legislation on this subject. With respect to the body of the laws for regulation of the practice of medicine and surgery, these laws, with very few exceptions, provide, first, that no one shall practice without first having obtained a license from the board established by the act. Then they provide just who and what kinds of practice shall be included within the terms of the statute. The ingenuity dis- played by these political doctors who have been lobbying for years in every legislature in this country in their effort to in- sert in these laws some provision that will maintain their mo- nopoly of the practice and exclude everybody else, challenges my admiration. The fact that many of such laws are in exactly the same language shows conclusively that they have been the work of one moving power. I am going to trouble the Senate by a brief review of these different statutory provisions. They are exceedingly interest- ing. Of course where the statute contains no definition of the practice of medicine and surgery, no mode of healing that does not use drugs or the knife would be included in its terms or affected in any way. Some of the States have left them just in that condition, and therefore such modes of healing may be practiced in those States beyond doubt. But, taking up the States in their order: In Alabama no exemption is contained in the statute affecting the question I am now discussing, and the definition of a practitioner within the meaning of the act is as follows : Any person who treats or of era to treat, diseases of human beings by any system whatsoever is considered to be practicing medicine. 41017 109G9 13 Nothing could be more absurd or unjust than this. Everyone knows that the Christian Science mode of practice, for exam- ple, is not practicing medicine, because they do not believe in medicines of any kind do not use them or prescribe them but are conscientiously opposed to their use. That a legislature of a State should falsify the facts, as is done in an act of this kind, in order to exclude people who are conscientiously en- deavoring to heal disease and who have brought health, happiness, and contentment to thousands and thousands of people notwith- standing these restrictive laws, is almost beyond comprehension. It has been done at the instigation of medical practitioners, act- ing through the American Medical Association, whose attempt is to selfishly retain in themselves a monopoly of healing tnd exclude everyone else. It is singular that the legislature of a State should allow itself to be used in any such way. In Arkansas no exemption is made, and when I say no ex- emption is made I mean as affecting the question which I am now considering, and in defining the scope of the act it is made to include anyone who prescribes or directs for the use of any person or persons any drug or medicine or other agency for the treatment, cure, or relief of any bodily injury, deformity, or disease. In California Christian Scientists are excluded from the ef- fects of the statute. In the State of Colorado the exempting clause provides : The act does not prohibit gratuitous service in case of emergency, nor the practice of the religious tenets of any church. Under this exemption the courts of Colorado have held that it applies only to the exercise of religion by a church as a body, and therefore it does not exempt or protect a Christian Science practitioner, who exercises the right of healing, from the penalties of the statute. In the following States, be it said to their credit, Christian Science is exempted from the provisions of the statute, in express terms : Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and South Dakota. In the following States the definition of the act includes the following provision, either in the same words or words having the same meaning and effect : Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and New Mexico : * * * to suggest, recommend, prescribe, or direct for the use of any person any drug, medicine, appliance, or other agency, whether material or not material, for the cure, relief, or palliation of any ail- ment or disease cf the mind or the body. In the District of Columbia there is no definition of the meaning of the term " practicing medicine or surgery," and therefore Christian Scientists, of course, are not included within its provisions or penalties. The same is true of a num- ber of the States. In Georgia the act is made to include : Any person practicing medicine or surgery who prescribes for the sick or those in need of medical or surgical aid and who charge or receive therefor money or other compensation or consideration directly or indirectly. 4191710069 14 The meaning and effect of that statute, of course, turns upon the word " prescribes," which, I assume, would apply only to medical treatment. The statute covering Hawaii includes: * * * any means or method or any agent, either tangible or in- tangible, for the treatment of disease in the human subject. The language of the statute of Idaho, in defining the scope of the act, is not as clear as it should be, but according to my con- struction of it it includes only (as every statute of this kind should) medical or surgical practitioners. In the State of Illinois this exempting clause is found in the statute: Nothing in this act applies to * *" * any person who adminis- ters to or treats the sick or suffering by mental or spiritual means without the use of any drug or material remedy. In Indiana there is no exemption and * * * to heal, cure, or relieve, or to attempt to heal, cure, or relieve, those suffering from injury, or deformity, or disease of mind or body Is included in the term "practice of medicine" within the meaning of the act. In Iowa there is 110 exemption, and it is provided in the act that Anyone is regarded as a physician who publicly professes to be a physician, surgeon, or obstetrician and assumes the duties thereof, or who makes a practice of prescribing and furnishing medicine for the sick, or who publicly professes to cure or heal. In Kansas the exempting clause is as follows : Nothing in this act shall be construed as interfering with any reli- gious beliefs in the treatment of disease : Provided, That quarantine regulations relating to contagious diseases are not infringed on. In Kentucky the definition of the act includes persons who shall treat or attempt to treat any sick or afflicted person by any system or method whatsoever for reward or compensation, or to announce to the public in any way a readiness to treat the sick or afflicted. But Christian Scientists are excepted by name. In Louisiana there is this exemption : Nothing in this act, however, shall be construed to prohibit the prac- tice of the religious tenets of any church whatsoever. In Maine Christian Scientists and osteopaths are expressly exempted from the terms of the act, together with any other method of healing, if no poisonous or dangerous drugs are employed nor surgical operations performed. In the State of Maryland the medical boards certainly have full control, for it is provided in express terms that Christian Scientists are not exempted from the terms of the statute. In Michigan no exemption is made, and the act is made to include all persons who attempt to diagnose, cure, or relieve any human disease, ailment, defect, or complaint, whether of physical or mental origin, by attendance or by advice, or by prescribing or furnishing any drug, medicine, appli- ance, manipulation; or method, or by any therapeutic agent whatsoever. There is no exemption in Minnesota, and the defining clause of the statute includes any agency for the treatment, care, or relief of any wound, fracture, or bodily injury, infirmity, or disease. In Mississippi there is no exemption and no definition of the meaning of the terms of the act, in which case, of course, Chris- 41917 109G9 15 tian Scientists are exempted because they are not practicing medicine. In Missouri there is no exemption, and the definition includes * * * any person attempting to treat the sick or others afflicted with bodily or mental infirmities. I shall come to the State of Missouri a little further along and disclose to the Senate the extent to which the board of health of the city of St. Louis has gone in attempting to sup- press the practice of Christian Science under this statute. There is no exemption in the State of Montana, and the act is made to apply to any agency, whether material or not material, for the cure, relief, or pal- liation of any ailment or disease of the ruind or body, or for the cure or relict" of any wound, fracture, or bodily injury or other deformity, after having received, or with the intention of receiving, therefor, either directly or indirectly, any bonus, gift, or compensation. In a number of the States the right to practice Christian Science is made to turn upon the question of compensation. It was conceived that a law absolutely forbidding Christian Scientists to heal disease would be unconstitutional, and in order to avoid that contingency it was believed that they might be prevented from practicing by forbidding them to receive any compensation for their services. In that the legislatures and the doctors who procured this kind of legislation have been greatly mistaken. Christian Scientists do not practice the heal- ing for money alone, and the practice of healing by them is gradually and steadily increasing in all of the States where this unjust provision has been made by law. In Nebraska the law contains no exemption, and has this provision defining the scope of the act : Any person shall be regarded as practicing medicine who shall op- erate or profess to heal or prescribe for or otherwise treat any phys- ical or mental ailment of another. The statute in the State of Nevada contains the provision above mentioned in the State of Montana, and almost in the exact language. In the New Jersey statute the language is peculiar. There is no exemption affecting this question, and this provision is inserted in the definition clause : The act applies to all persons professing and attempting to cure diseases by means of the so-called systems of " faith cm-ism," " mind healing," " laying on of hands," and other similar systems. I do not know whether or not the distinguished lawmakers of the State of New Jersey understood that Christian Scientists would be included in that category. Certainly they would not place themselves there. So far as I know, the courts of that State have not been called upon to determine what is in- cluded in that definition. In the provision in the New Mexico statute, in defining the words " practice of medicine," the language is precisely the same as I have stated for Montana and Nevada. In New York this clause is inserted in the definition of the practice of medicine : Anyone who shall either offer or undertake by any means or method to diagnose, treat, operate, or prescribe for any human disease, pain, injury, de- formity, or physical condition. North Carolina has no definition and therefore does not affect the rights of Christian Scientists. 41917 109G9 10 Iii Oliio the defining clause is made to include any person who administers treatment of whatever nature for the cure or relief of a wound, frac- ture, or bodily injury, infirmity, or disease for a compensation. This clause in the Ohio statute has been construed by the courts to apply to Christian Scientists, and they are positively forbidden in that State to practice healing for a consideration. In Oklahoma the defining clause limits the operation of the statute to the practice of medicine and surgery in the proper sense of those terms, and therefore does not prohibit other modes of healing. The State of Oregon may be regarded as in the same con- dition, except that the language of the defining clause of the statute is somewhat ambiguous and uncertain. In Pennsylvania, again, there is no defining clause. The statute of the Philippine Islands is made to apply to any- one who shall " treat " any person for any ailment. In Porto Rico the language of the statute is almost precisely the same as that of Montana and Nevada. The State of Rhode Island has a reasonable and proper defini- tion of the practice of medicine and surgery, and does not pro- hibit other modes of healing. The language of the South Carolina statute is the same as that of the Philippine Islands. The statute of Tennessee is made to apply to anyone who " treats or professes to treat " any person for any physical ailment, the same as in the Philippines and Porto Rico. The statute of Texas provides that there shall be no discrimi- nation against any school of medicine nor apply to masseurs practicing massage and provides in the defining clause that Any person shall be regarded as practicing medicine who shall * * * treat or offer to treat any disease or disorder, mental or physical deformity, or injury by any system or method or to effect cures thereof and charge therefor, directly or indirectly, money or other com- pensation. This is another of the statutes which makes the right to prac- tice Christian Science depend upon the charging of a compensa- tion. The State of Utah has this provision in the exempting clause: This act does not prohibit * * * those healing by spiritual means without pretending to have a knowledge of medicine. In Vermont there is no exemption, and the act is made by the defining clause to apply to all persons who prescribe, direct, recommend, or advise, give or sell for the use of any person any drug, medicine, or other agency or application for the treat- ment, cure, or relief of any bodily injury, infirmity, or disease, or who fellows the occupation of treating disease by any system or method. The defining clause in the statute of Virginia makes the stat- ute apply to persons who Cure or relieve those suffering from injury or deformity, or disease of iiiiiMl or body, or advertise or announce to the*public in any manner a readiness or ability to heal, cure, or relieve those who may L>e suffering from injury or deformity or disease of mind or body. The exemption clause is as follows: Nothing in this act shall he construed to affect or to limit the prac- tice of the religious tenents of any church in the ministration of the sick or suffering by mental or spiritual means without the use of any drug or material remedy, whether gratuitously or for compensation, . provided sanitary laws are complied with. 41017 100G9 17 The exemption clause in the statute of Washington includes the following : Nor is the act " to discriminate against any particular school of medi- cine or surgery or osteopathy, or any system or mode of treating the sick or afflicted, nor to interfere in any way with the practice of re- ligion." The denning clause of the statute of West Virginia confines the effect of the act to the practice of medicine, as every such act should in justice be confined. The statute of Wisconsin is in like condition. There is no exemption in the statute of the State of Wyoming and the denning clause contains the following: Any person is regarded as practicing medicine who in any manner holds himself out to the public as being engaged in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases or injuries or deformities of human beings, or who suggests, recommends, or prescribes any form of treatment for the intended palliation, relief, or cure of any physical or mental ailment of any person, with the intention of receiving therefor, either directly or indirectly, any fee, gift, or compensation. Another of the statutes turning upon the question of charging for services rendered. The statutes containing these various peculiar provisions, especially those bringing within the terms of the statutes for the regulation of the practice of medicine and surgery all per- sons who are healing disease by altogether different means and without the use of medicines or surgery, show the extent to which the American Medical Association has gone in attempting to hold in the hands of its own profession and school of medi- cine the treatment of disease, and how obliging the legislatures of the different States have been in giving false definitions of the practice of medicine and surgery in aid of this effort on their part. If these unjust and, in many cases, unconstitutional statutes should be enforced Christian Scientists would be in many of the States absolutely prohibited from any attempt to heal disease or alleviate suffering in any form ; but, fortunately, the people of this country are more enlightened, intelligent, and tolerant than the doctors or their legislators in many cases. The doctors have made the most strenuous efforts to enforce these statutes in various States. Their efforts have usually been failures. Generally jurors will not convict in such cases, even if the statute has been violated, as the beneficent work of Christian Science has become so well known throughout the country, resulting in the healing of thousands of people after the doctors had given them up as incurable, and has convinced pretty much everybody except the doctors, whose selfish interests are involved, that they are doing a work which should be com- mended by all good citizens instead of making it a criminal offense to exercise their right of healing. I am going to trouble the Senate now for a time by showing just what has been done in some cases by the medical practi- tioners in attempting to enforce these prohibitory statutes which they themselves have brought about for selfish purposes in the prosecution, even persecution, of those who have con- scientiously endeavored to heal disease and alleviate suffering by means in which they thoroughly believe and which have been eminently successful. I can give only a very few of these cases, as time will not permit me to go into many of them. If I could bring before the Senate of the United States all of the cases of persecution that have grown up under the prohibitive statutes which I have- 41917 10969 2 18 called to its attention it would arouse the just indignation of every Member of this body. I now call attention to one case which is in point. I have called to the attention of the Senate the provisions in the stat- ute of the State of Missouri which makes it a penal offense for any person to attempt to treat the sick or those afflicted with bodily or mental infirmities unless they have procured a license to practice medicine or surgery from the board of health, au- thorized by the statute to issue such licenses. Of course, Christian Scientists can not procure a license from a medical board of examiners or board of health, because they are neither medical practitioners nor surgeons. Therefore, under this stat- ute, every person who ministers to the sick or injured without such a license is made subject to a penalty. Bertha Eeichenbecher was a Christian Science practitioner and a reader in one of the churches in the city of St. Louis. She was urgently requested to attend a man who falsely claimed to be seriously ill. She responded to the call and ac- cepted a fee of $1 that was pressed upon her by the alleged patient The man was a decoy of the health department of the city, who pretended to be ill in order to detect Miss Reichen- becher in the act of practicing Christian Science healing. The bill he gave her was marked. Officers were waiting for her at the door and arrested her for the alleged offense and took her to the police station and treated her throughout with unneces- sary indignities. But I shall let Miss Reichenbecher give the particulars of the occurrence. She has made a succinct state- ment of the whole matter in a sworn affidavit, which is as follows : STATE OB- Missotnti, City of St. Louis, ss: Personally appeared before the undersigned, a notary public within and for the said city of St. Louis, Bertha Reichenbecher, who, being duly sworn on oath, deposes and says, viz : " My name is Bertha Eeichenbecher ; am 45 years of age, and un- married. I reside at No. 1726 Oregon Avenue In the said city of St. Louis, where I keep house with my mother, who Is now 91 years of age. I have been a member of local Christian Science churches for the past 12 years. I am now a member and the second reador of Third Church of Christ, Scientist, In St. Louis, and have been a mem- ber of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, of Boston, Mass., since 1007; am also a Chiistian Science practitioner, and have been for two years past. " On Friday, December 15, 1911, a young woman, giving her name as Hazel Miller, applied to me at my home for Christian Science treat- ment, saying that she had obtained my name from another Christian Scientist and that she has also heard me read In the Christian Science Church. I gave her a treatment, and she requested me to call the next morning to see her brother, who, she said, was confined to the house with Bright's disease. She gave her residence as No. 2118 Oregon Avenue. There was nothing said by either of us about payment for the treatment. The next morning at 11.15 I called at that ad- dress and found the young man lying on a couch, covered, and with a bottle of medicine and a pipe on a chair beside him. After a short talk I gave him treatment and arranged that he should call at my home the following Monday, as he had arranged for a week's treatment. I had started for the door when he called me back and insisted that his ' sister ' pay me for the treatment. I asked them to wait until I was through with the case, but he insisted that 1 accept payment then for the treatment given. They paid me $1, and I departed. Upon reaching the corner of Oregon and Russell Avenue, a man stood facing me, who bowed as I approached, and said, 'You are Miss Reichenbecher?' I re- plied, ' Yes,' and shook hands with him, thinking he was some one I had met and whose name I could not recall. He said, 'My name is Coats ; I am an officer of the law. and must arrest you for practicing Christian Science without a license.' I asked if he had been watching my house. He replied, ' We do not give away our methods.' I then 41917 10969 19 said that I could not understand why they should entrap me in this way, when they might go and find Christian Science practitioners in their offices all over the city. He made no reply. I asked permission to go to my home, a little over a block away, and inform my mother, who i 91 years old, that I would be away for a little while ; but he would not permit me, saying that I could use both telephones when I reached the station. We then took the Tower Grove car to the central station, and he reported to Acting Sergt. Singleton. I telephoned to Mr. John Ashcroft that I had been placed under arrest. It was 12.30, as near as I can remember, when we arrived at the station. I told them that my bondsman and attorney would be there as quickly as possible. After giving my name, etc., Officer Coats, who arrested me, escorted me to the second floor and I was turned over to the matron. There was some woman present who had slept there several nights, having been under arrest, to whom the matron said in sharp, impatient tone, as I entered, 'Turn your back.' She then said to me in the same tone. 'Take off your things.' I said, 'Why? Shall I have to wait long? I am waiting for my bondsman and attorney.' She said, 'You will probably be here some little time.' She then said, ' Take off your hat.' When I did so, she took it and untied the lining ; felt all over the hat, inside and out ; and requested me to take off my coat. She emptied my pockets, and asked whether there were only two pockets in the coat, after shaking the same. She then said, ' Put down your bag ; now take off your waist." I said, ' Why, do you mean to search me? ' She replied, ' Yes.' I grew red, I know, and said, ' Why, I am not arrested for theft ; do you know what I am arrested for ? ' She said, ' Yes ; we have had lots of your kind, and we have to take these measures to get rid of them.' I remarked, ' 1 have been arrested for practicing Christian Science without a license.' She said, ' I know drop your skirts.' I stood but 3 or 4 feet from a door which contained a glass panel, across which a narrow towel had been stretched, leaving some inches of the glass exposed at the top. I turned, and said, ' Why, look ; I can see those men's heads.' She said, ' That don't matter ; they can't see any- thing.' I reiterated at different times, ' This is awful, to be compelled to be searched as though I had committed a theft ' ; and I remarked that Miss Dyer had been arrested several weeks before, and I asked whether she had been subjected to this ordeal. She said she did not remember ; she supposed so. She requested me to unfasten my garters and remove my corsets, which article she carefully searched, and she then told me to take off my shoes and turn down my stockings to the feet. This left me with nothing but my undergarments on, and she felt carefully over my entire body and also through my hair. While she searched I could also hear the voice of Mr. Priesmeyer, my bonds- man, talking in the next room. ' " During our conversation I asked the matron if she knew anything about Christian Science, and she said very little ; that one lady at one time gave her a rather intelligent answer to the question as to what Christian Science was ; and she asked me what Christian Science was. I said, ' Prayer, and keeping the heart close to God.' "After dressing, she asked me to count out the money in my purse, laying dollars together, and to turn out everything that was In it. There was $12.80 in the purse. My bag or purse was then handed to the two men In the next room (Coats and Lawrence), and, as the door was opened a number of times while I was in there, I saw them count- ing the money and going through the contents of my bag. These men put my money in an env-elope and marked it ' 11.86.' I did not know until I saw the statement in the newspaper two days later that they had taken the marked dollar bill, which Lawrence had given me, out of my purse, nor did I know that the dollar was marked. " While the matron did not handle me roughly, she treated me in exactly the same manner she would have exercised with any criminal who was turned over to her. While I did not resist physically, I cer- tainly made strong protests against being subjected to the search. I treated her with the courtesy with which I treat everyone, and when I left I said ' good-day ' to her, as I did not blame her for the treat- ment I had received, since she assured me she was only carrying out orders. " Later, when I was permitted to go into the next room, there was another man who required me to sign my name in a book, and he escorted me to the room downstairs where my bag had been left, and there it was turned over to me. " BERTHA REICIIENEECHER." Subscribed and sworn to before me this 15th day of January, 1912. My commission expires May 30, 1914. [SEAL.] OLIVER FRAZIER, Notary Public, City of St. Louis, Mo. 41917 109G9 20 This disgraceful proceeding aroused the Indignation of the good people of St. Louis. The prosecuting attorney denounced the proceeding as a " frame-up " and refused to prosecute the case. The newspapers, including some medical journals, de- nounced the proceedings in unmeasured terms. One of the newspapers of the city, after giving a full account of the affair and commenting severely upon the conduct of the board of health, had this further to say: PHYSICIAN DENOUNCES COMMISSIONIHI. The next step In protest agninst municipal and medical tyranny was taken a few days later when Dr. Paul Fletcher, a member of the city council and a prominent doctor, Introduced resolutions In the council condemning the action of Dr. Starkloff In gathering evidence. The council defeated the resolutions. Dr. Fletcher defined bis position as follows : " The health commissioner has caused employees to faint, and tha methods are repugnant to many of our esteemed citizens ; It Is a travesty on the law and subversive of right and justice. It is wrong to put a woman In Jail who has committed no crime. I am a physician, but If our law officers are compelled to resort to such methods it Is time to risa np in protest. The opposition of medical Journals to Christian Science was clearly shown, but it is some consolation that some of them de- nounced this proceeding and declared for common decency in the treatment of such cases. I wish this might be said of the doctors who usually deal with matters of this kind. They are trying to enforce such prohibitory laws rigorously and without mercy with the hope of suppressing such treatment of disease entirely. It is a hopeless task as well as a brutal attempt to deprive thousands of our people of the right to resort to the remedy of their own choice for relief from disease. If the teachings of Christian Science are false, if the principle of heal- ing its people believe in is not truf and their pretensions a fake, Christian Science will not survive. If it is the truth it will prevail, and no restrictive or prohibitory laws nor any amount of persecution can overthrow it or force them to forego their right and their religious duty to heal the sick. They believe, and I concur hi that belief, that any law that forbids or inter- feres with this right and duty is in violation of the Constitution of the United States and should be treated accordingly. I shall come to this question further along. I desire to take up one or two other cases of prosecution un- der the prohibitory or restrictive State statutes. The following newspaper account of conditions in New York is interesting : ARRESTS IN NEW YORK CASK AGAINST MRS. MOSBACIt RESULTS IN AC- QUITTAL GRAND JURY REFUSES TO INDICT ONE MAN. The status of the "Irregular" practitioner In New York City Is still an unknown quantity. The latest case that has come up is that of Mrs. Margaret Mosbach, whose daughter, Kathryn, was found by the coroner to have died on November 30, 1911, of diphtheria, under treat- ment by a Christian Science practitioner, Mrs. Marie Roberts, of the Bronx. On January 5 a coroner's Jury, containing many of the most prominent men of the Bronx, acquitted Mrs. Mosbach of willful neglect In falling to call a physician for her daughter. The verdict of the Jury raised the question of needed legislation to prevent occurrence of eucb cases. WHY NOT ARREST DOCTORS, TOO? Mr. Virgil O. Stridden, former first reader of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, New York, commented on the Mosbach case In a lecture. Mr. Stricklcr said that the New York World had published a list of 32 children who had died under Christian Science treatment during the last 13 years. The newspapers always publish such cases in glaring headlines, he said, but the people's attention was not called to 4191710909 21 oases proving fatal under regular physicians. Against 1,715 deaths in New York alone from diphtheria during 1910 of young children under care of doctors, only 10 from that cause had occurred in 13 years under Christian Science treatment over the entire Nation. "Really," he con- cluded, " in all fairness, why should not the doctors be arrested for allowing these children to die under their treatment, the same as a Christian Science practitioner is arrested when one patient dies from, the same disease under her treatment? " GRAND JURY REFUSES INDICTMENT. This recent case recalls the arrest about a year ago of Willis V. Cole, Byron W. Winslow, and Julius Benjamin, Christian Scientists, after the machinations of a woman detective who feigned illness and asked them for treatment They were held for the court of special sessions, but had the trials transferred to the court of general sessions. This gave the grand jury an opportunity to pass upon the merits of the cases, and the grand jury investigating Mr. Winslow's case refused to indict. The cases of Cole and Benjamin are still pending, and will probably be made test cases to decide the rights of unlicensed practitioners. Mrs. Mosbach was charged with neglect in trusting to Chris- tian Science treatment in case of her daughter who died of diphtheria and not calling a doctor. It is quite a common thing to censure anyone who fails to call a doctor where death ensues. If a doctor is called and the patient dies no one is to blame. If a doctor loses a patient it is called a misfortune. The same thing if a Christian Scientist is the attendant is a crime. This further account of the New York situation is from the New York World : WHY NOT ARREST DOCTORS WHEN PATIENTS DIE? (VIRGIL O. STICKLER) THERE WEKB 1.713 DIPIIT JIKKIA DEATHS IN CITY IN 1910 UNDER " SCIENCE " TREATMENT 1 IN 13 YEARS -FIRST READER QUOTES FROM VITAL STATISTICS PROTESTS AGAINST ADVOCATES OF THE DRUGGING SYSTEM ATTEMPTING TO DICTATE. When the World published two weeks ago a list of 32 children who had died of diphtheria and other diseases during the last 13 years while being treated by Christian Science practitioners it moved Virgil O. Strickler, the first reader of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Ninety-sixth Street and Central Park West, to compile a few statistics from the vital records of the city to set against the list. This is his response as he made it when lecturing to the Sixth Church of Christ, Scientist, in Lexington Hall, No. 158 East Fifty-eighth Street, Tuesday night Many people do not understand why Christian Scientists have more faith in Christian Science treatment than they have in drugs. The rea- son is very plaiu, said Mr. Strickler. They get better results under Christian Science than they formerly obtained under the drugging system. The World published on Sunday the names of 32 children who. it claimed, had died under Christian Science treatment in the United States during the past 13 years. Whenever a person, and especially a child, dies under Christian Science treatment the fact is published under glaring headlines in the papers, and as a rule somebody is ar- rested. It is safe therefore to assume that the list published contained the names of all the children who have died under Christian Science treatment during the last 13 years. In the published list of names 10 are said to have died from diph- theria, 5 from pneumonia and bronchial pneumonia, 2 from scarlet fever, and the remainder from a variety of causes. WHAT NEW YORK RECORDS SHOW. I hold in my hand an official report of the department of health of the city of New York for the year 1910, which shows that during the last year there were 1,715 deaths from diphtheria, nearly all chi'.dren under 15 under the care of doctors in this city alone, as against 10 deaths from the same cause under Christian Science practice in the 1^ o' opposite political faith, it is no reason that yo^i have not 50 or luu friends that you can see who are of the same political faith as the candidate. Don't forget the " personal favor." We ask you to see 50 or 100 friends that are voters. Do you realize what this means? Eleven thousand physicians In Illinois seeing the number indicated would amount to the following : Eleven thousand times 50 equals 550.000 voters. This means victory, something that each individual physician should feel proud of. Talk it over with your brother practitioners and clients. I submit another newspaper item from Medical Freedom, taken from the New Orleans Times-News. It shows such per- nicious activity and indecent haste to secure the appointment of a public official who would be friendly to the legislation the doctors were seeking as to excite just indignation, and the ex- tent to which they propose to go in the effort to procure favor- able action by Congress: TO SUCCEED WYMAN AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION SATS SELECTION OP DE. WHYTE, OF NEW ORLEANS, WILL INSURE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH DR. M'CORUACK, POLITICAL MASTER OF THE A. M. A., STARTED HIS MACHINE WORKING BEFORE GEN. WYMAN'S FUNERAL DATE HAD BEEN SET. It has been no secret that the A. M. A. opposed the late Walter Wyman, Surgeon General of the United States. Its members, made many demands for his retirement because he did not use his office to lobby for their pet measure the National Department of Health. The fol- lowing item from the New Orleans Times-News bureau naively tells a story of political selfishness, haste, and bad taste that would be almost incredible if it emanated from elsewhere than the " political doctors." The item reads: "A boom has been launched, having for its ob|ect the landing of Dr. J. H. Whyte, head of the United States Marine-Hospital Service at New Orleans for the vacancy as Surgeon General, caused by the recent death of Dr. Walter Wyman. The effort comes from Bowling Green, Ky., and the Louisiana State Board of Health was apprised of it in a letter received from Dr. .Toseph McCormack, of that place, and a member of the council of health and public instruction of the American Medical Association, which booms Dr. Whyte for the place enthusi- astically. " The following Is the text of the letter sent Dr. Oscar Dowling, presi- dent of the State board of health, New Orleans, La. : " ' DEAR DOCTOR : Am just in receipt of a telegram announcing the death of Gen. Wyman. Am writing to know if you will at once bring every influence to bear on President Taft, through your Senators, Repre- sentatives, and others, to have Dr. Joseph H. Whyte, of New Orleans, appointed as Surgeon General. He is one of the strongest men in the service, has always been an active advocate of the National Department of Health, and his appointment almost assures its creation. " ' Trusting in. your full cooperation, and asking to hear from you, I am, " ' Cordially, youra, J. H. MCCORMACK, M. D.' " I have no doubt that Dr. Whyte is a very worthy man and would have made a good Surgeon General, but it is fortunate that he was not appointed with such influences behind him. It is quite likely that his support defeated him, for the President knew of this letter before the appointment was made, and the President is a just man possessed of a high sense of decency and the proprieties. COLLECTION AND DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION. The bill provides: That it shall be the duty of the bureau of health to collect and dis- seminate information relating to the public health. This is one of the most deadly provisions in the bill. This Government is now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to send broadcast the details of sickness, disease, and suffering. It is by this means planting the seeds of disease and killing more innocent and unsuspecting people than drugs ever saved. 41917 109C9 39 The people are being taught to think of sickness, disease, and death wheii they should be thinking of health and life. Doctors are traveling all over the country describing the symptoms and causes of tuberculosis and other life-destroying diseases, not only to grown men and women, but to school children. They describe the so-called disease germs or microbes and their effects on the body, and picture, by word of mouth and by charts, illus- trated lectures, and moving pictures, the ravages of the disease. These horrifying and gruesome pictures and senseless and in- human details of the causes and ravages of disease excite the very fear that breeds and fosters disease. These lectures are given in the schools and innocent children are made their vic- tims. Instead of being encouraged, it should be made a crime. I have a letter written by a lady to the League for Medical Freedom calling attention to one case of this kind. Fortunately the chief offender in this case was not a doctor. He was the representative of the Antituberculosis Society. But the incom- prehensible thing about it is that the teachers and officers of the public schools in an enlightened community should allow such an outrage to be committed. The letter is as follows: luclosed please find a few clippings that may be of interest to you. Mr. Dee Brown he is not a doctor of medicine, but of philosophy is being paid by the Anti-Tuberculosis Society to come here and enter on. a campaign of a month to address all the schools in the city and edu- cate them along the lines of symptoms and their results of this disease. They started in on Friday, and it happened that they went to the grade schools on the west side that is, those that are in the section we call the Union School by noon they reached the Union High and assembled the high-school children in one of the rooms. He went into the minutest detail of the symptoms of this disease, and told them that they might have the disease and not know it ; that many times the tissues of the lungs were so badly gone before the patient knew that he had the disease that there was "no help for him. He said some- times you may have a tired feeling in the morning; this is one of the marked symptoms. You may have a flush on your cheeks, and not know this is one of the worst symptoms, and he went on down the lino. He filled the children so full of fear that one beautiful tall girl fell in a dead faint on. the hard floor, striking on her temple, and they were obliged to call a carriage and send her home, and when one of the teachers called at the home Saturday afternoon she had not re- gained consciousness enough to realize what had happened to her. She is still under a doctor's care, with a very bad black eye and face. Two , other girls were helped out of the room and one or two others braced up by the teachers, and the boys fairly turned pale. Everybody supposed, of course, he was a physician, and they could not understand his unprofessional way of presenting his subject' to these children. They teach these children to have implicit confidence in what they teach them, and, of course, their thought is receptive. After the talk the children stood around in groups and expressed them- selves as being very much disturbed because they were obliged to listen to such stuff, and a number of them went to the teachers after- wards and asked why they were obliged to listen to it. Monday morning he went to the Central High, and his talk was the first hour. They locked the session doors and compelled all the children to enter the general assembly hall. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday we got busy on this work, and did all we could to have the lecture toned down and the worst part elimi- nated, but now we are setting about to have the entire lecture course eliminated. We have appealed to the parents of our city, as many as we can reach over the phone, and asked them to send in protests to the board of education. Last evening was the regular monthly meeting of the board, and a few went up to the meeting and personally protested, which resulted in a committee of three being appointed to investigate the matter and hear some of his lectures. I do not think he will dare to give again the talk that he gave to the Union High children. This man has just finished a campaign in Wisconsin, covering the State completely, and he has now entered Michigan to do the same thing. I am going into detail, thinking it may be of some help to you with the work in the State, and if Detroit has planned for a similar campaign you will be better prepared to head it off. 4191710069 40 We had a talk with the girl's attending physician and he said it was outrageous. Such talk should never he allowed in even one in- stance, etc. He gave us the privilege of using his name, but, as he has stated, he is not an agitator and he is not one to stir things up much. I hope you will advertise this, for it needs all the publicity we can give it. Sir. Weston is writing an article for us this week and we are going to send out 500 of them to the parents of school children. We have a meeting of the executive committee of the league this afternoon and we will plan something in the way of a protest. We are doing all we can to have it eliminated from the schools, and if they want to give such talks to give them to the adults. With best wishes to all, Sincerely, FRANCES W. SPEARMAN. Mr. President, see how this idea grows. Here is another en- lightened guardian of the public health proposing to educate children in the knowledge of disease by introducing moving pictures of the ravages of tuberculosis and disease germs. He got the idea from a young girl who had learned to " describe the formation and construction of tuberculosis bacillus to a surprising degree," he says. And she got this gruesome in- formation from illustrated lectures in Carnegie Hall, in New York. Here is the account given of it by the Memphis Press : As to the paths to be pursued before this term end by public-school children in search of facts pertaining to health welfare, it is probable that " a child shall lead them." For it was a child's knowledge of things beyond the ken of physiology textbooks in the public s'chool which set Dr. M. Goltman, city healther, to thinking out a plan for furthering the knowledge of school children in the matter of health. As a result lectures on health subjects, illustrated by moving pictures, will sooner or later become a feature of public-school instruction. This will follovv the advent of more school inspectors, which Dr. Goltman is now striving to have added to the meager force. " I got my idea from conversation with my 13-year-old niece in the East," said Dr. Goltman. " She was able to describe the formation and construction of tuberculosis bacillus to a surprising degree, and she knew other things a growing child should know, and knew them in the right way. I was astounded, and asked if she learned those things in school. She said no ; that she attended illustrated lectures at Carnegie Hall and like places, because she was interested. These places are open to those who care to attend in New York, but I thought to myself, ' Why not build up a course of study and instruction in the public schools along those lines?' And if I have my say, Memphis will have the first regular course in its public schools of health and hygiene with the aid of moving pictures, thus going New York one better in its estimable work." One would think this fearful raid on the health and lives of the children might stop there. But the doctors seem to be vie- ing with each other in efforts to disease the minds of innocent children and ignorant adults. At the sixty-fifth annual meet- ing of the Ohio State Medical Association Dr. C. C. Probst, of Columbus, in an address on " The protection of child life," said : More progress would be made If no further effort were made to " teach old dogs new tricks," but attention should be devoted to the training of the school children in hygiene and sanitation and physical education. This would mean a new man in school life a school physi- cian. It would mean school supervision, not school inspection. And at the sixty-first annual meeting of the American Medi- cal Association, at St. Louis, June, 1910, the use of the theater as a means of conveying information about disease and disease germs was recommended. Dr. Masyck P. Ravenal, of Madison, Wis., had this to say on the subject : In regard to the use of the theater for instructing the public along the lines of preventive medicine, may I tell you what we have done in Wisconsin? Many of you have probably seen notices in the news- 41917 109G9 41 papers of the play " In Germlnnd." This was given by the younR Indies taking work in the department of bacteriology and hygiene at the University of Wisconsin. The characters were all dressed in cos- tumes representing as nearly as possible various germs as we see them in stained preparations, both the useful and the harmful germs being represented. No charge was made for admission, cards of invi- tation being issued. It was given as a department matter for our own entertainment and Instruction, yet the demand for admission from outside taxed the resources of our hall to the utmost, and throughout the country the greatest interest was excited. Our stage scenery was made as instructive as possible. We showed dirty roller towels on the wall, spittoons, garbage cans marked " No. 23," the common drinking cup, the common sponge, the feather duster, the broom emphasizing as much as possible the bad features of such things. We had a large rat trap containing the rats which the womea have been wearing in their hair so much of late. A garbage barrel filled with broken bottles and tin cans was called the " Germ-ania Theater," and the play announced was " The Place, the Man, and the Germ." These things as we presented them were quite amusing. They catch the popular eye and at the same time give a great amount of instruc- tion to those who have never thought on such matters before. This play is being revised and improved, and during the coming year is to be put on the stage by professionals. I am sure this sort of work wUl do an enormous amount of good in educating the public. But the height of cruelty and folly seems to have been reached by the Kansas State Board of Health. It has published a ' health almanac." In its number of December, 1911, the board assumes to let the people know what diseases they may look for- ward to each month in the year. It opens with a repulsive pic- ture of a woman cruelly pitted with smallpox, with the state- ment under it, " Never vaccinated." But this is not really the worst of it. They take a page of their so-called almanac for a disease with the following headings: "January for smallpox, February for pneumonia, March for measles, April for whooping cough, May for good wells and good water," with the cheering statement for May that Bad or impure water is more dangerous than the deadliest poison and always affects those who drink it. Wells are polluted by organic matter getting into them. This matter comes from human beings or from animals and is always bad for those who drink It. If it comes from a case of typhoid or from a person who carries typhoid germs and gets into the well it will produce typhoid fever in those who drink it, June for infants' complaints, July for flies and mosquitoes, August for typhoid fever, September for diphtheria, October for scarlet fever, November for colds and influenza, and December for consumption. These doctors, if they are worthy of the name, know that two great causes of disease are fear and suggestion and that sugges- tion is the prolific cause of fear, disease, and death. And yet they deliberately send out broadcast, at public expense, a sug- gestion probably a false one, but that makes no difference- that in each month of the year a specific and deadly disease may be expected and feared. It is the refinement of cruelty and the depth of ignorance in a matter of life and death if it is not malicious. This persistent suggestion of disease and its alleged causes is creating more disease and sacrificing more lives than are all the germs that have been discovered or imagined by man. Mr. President, I said a moment ago that I thought the height of cruelty and folly had been reached by the State board of health of Kansas, but I have discovered something even worse 4191710969 42 than that. What is called "A circular for school children " has been distributed in some of the schools of this country that seems to me to go further in the way of spreading improper in- formation than anything I have yet seen It pictures a small boy examining disease germs through z. microscope. The cir- cular says : Then there are so many bad fairies which cause disease. Different kinds of them cause different diseases. * * * These little fairies are called bacteria or germs and are the smallest of all living things. They are found everywhere in the air, the soil, the water, in our bodies. A quart of well water would contain a million of them. Then follow illustrations of the different kinds of deadly dis- ease germs with a statement under each group of the diseases they cause. Then the circular undertakes, by illustration, to show how the germs of tuberculosis are carried. The point of a pencil is pictured, covered with such germs as come from the mouth of the victim, and the picture of a fly is set out with Its legs loaded with disease germs. A picture of a sick man in his invalid chair is given, with children taking some of his food from a spoon, with the statement under it : " The genus that attack us come from the bodies of the sick." Other pictures of the means by which disease is conveyed are given. An emaciated consumptive, apparently in the last stage of the disease, is pictured as spitting upon the floor, and a woman sweeping up the sputum after it has dried. A little child is pictured as sitting near by, with the statement under this pic- ture, " The germs may enter the bodies of children playing on the floor." Two "persons are pictured as sitting at a table, one of them a consumptive, with the statement below it, " Others may get the disease by breathing " ; and still another case, a small boy, emaciated by the disease, taking a bite of something, with two healthy-looking little fellows standing by, saying, " Give us a bite," with the statement under this picture, " Putting food, money, pencils, etc., into the mouth after a consumptive has poisoned them with his spit." Now, Mr. President, I can not conceive of anything more cruel and inhuman than the loading of the minds of little children with such information as this. Physical ill treatment or abuse can not be compared to it, and yet I find the superintendents and teachers of the schools and boards of education not only permitting this sort of literature to go into the schools but actually encouraging it. They may be partially excused by their apparent ignorance of the palpable consequences of such impressions upon the minds of the young, because like a good many other people in this country they do not think for them- selves or try to understand the effects of such suggestions as this circular contains, but accept it because the doctors approve It. I am sorry to bring to even the attention of the United States Senate such brutal and inhuman suggestions; and when one thinks of filling the minds of children with this kind of stuff, it is nothing less than horrifying. Fortunately, some public officials, not doctors, are humane and sensible enough to attempt to stay this fearful filling of the minds of children with these hideous details of disease. The mayor of San Francisco, Cal., is one of these. I submit 41917 109G9 43 for the consideration of the Senate an editorial in the San Francisco Star of February 12, 1912: A WORD FOR TUB MICROBES. Here are recent words of Mayor Rolph that are commended to your consideration : " I think you should go slow about the methods of eradicating tuberculosis. I hear so many mothers In the mission say that this tuberculosis scare has been so driven into the minds of their children that they come home saying they are filled with aches and pains, and have backaches and stomach aches and one thing and another. I heard this discussed last night, and that germs of every human ill have been shown on magic-lantern slides pictures that make children get the idea that their bodies are covered with germs. I do think that you ought to be very careful to first study out well the effect of all thia and prevent what Is evidently intended to make children think they are filled with all kinds of diseases, when you know, as a matter of fact, they are not, and that what you are really trying to do is only to prevent disease." Amen. Also hallelujah and God save us. The mayor Is right. A child may be scared into sickness as well as safeguarded against it. We have overworked the microbes, poor things. They are good, bad, and indifferent, but no matter how irreproachable their character our chil- dren have been indirectly inoculated with' the Idea that they should be regarded as malefactors and goblins. The fact is that man has slowly educated himself tip to the point where he is scared to death by death. This is why 10,000 fads of healing bud and blossom in our midst. I remember very well when a stomach ache was cured by Jamaica ginger and a mustard plaster. Now the chances are that nothing but removing the vermiform appendix will do the business ; after that, if one has a stomach ache he may try the old remedies. Again, the mayor is right. We show our kids pictures In which human flesh is portrayed as the grazing ground of all sorts of apparent antediluvian monsters. What wonder if the half-formed minds of the children get the idea that there is not much hope for them ; if they are "filled with aches and pains and have backaches and stomach aches"? Deuce take it ! how can they expect anything else with megatheriums and other bacilli at work? The Ohio State Journal in its issue of November 27, 1911, contained this sensible editorial on this subject: THINKING HEALTH. We find this very suggestive paragraph In a book entitled " Thil- osophy of Self-Help " : " The most prevalent and the most dangerous of all forms of infec- tion is mental. It is far easier to get bacteria out of the body than to eradicate disease germs from the mind once they get In. Thinking and talking about disease prepare the mental sofl for its reception. Fear and expectancy promote its growth." We apply this thought to medical inspection of schools, which tenda to fill the minds of the children with thoughts of disease. It is en- tirely uneducational to do so. It is the easiest thing In the world to transfer an ailment of the body into a disease of the mind, and when that becomes a child's condition, he goes through the schools carrying a heavy load. And that condition of the mind tends to promote disease. One disturbs the free activity of the mind by turning it In on physical ills. The best hope of health is to think health, and that suggests the sort of education a child is entitled to. It will be a hard matter for even a well child to grow grand and good out of a consciousness of surround- ing physical ills. Mr. President, the doctors are using every means possible to get themselves into the schools. They are trying to teach un- thinking people that this is necessary to the public health. What a dreadful mistake ! The presence of the doctor who thinks nothing and talks nothing but disease, is full of fear of microbes and the thousands of causes of disease that had better never have been known, is little better than a death's head in 41917 10969 44 the schoolroom. Better have someone to teach the children that good is more powerful than evil ; that we make disease by thinking it ; and to be thinking of better and higher things than the material causes of disease. This will never be a healthy Natio" until the people are freed mentally . from this dreadful, all-pervading fear of disease. Men and women burdened with all these false beliefs and fears are slaves to their wrong view of life. Mr. President, this nefarious onslaught on young children find the spread of disease through suggestion and fear has grown worse and worse. And now the Government is to be asked to become a party to this spreading of disease by collect- ing and disseminating like information for the whole country to read. What a fearful responsibility must rest upon the people who are disseminating such information. Every doctor worthy of the name knows that fear is one of the most prolific causes of disease. He knows, too, that sug- gestion of disease is equally deadly in its effects, especially on the timid and fearful. And yet, with full knowledge of this, they set about in the most direct and forceful way to suggest the existence and presence of the very diseases they claim to be combating and to implant in the minds of the old and' young the fear that engenders the disease. If the evidence of this cruel wrong was not so direct and positive it would be beyond belief. A very interesting article on the effects of fear, by Dr. Orison Swett Harden, was published in the Philadelphia Even- ing Bulletin February 24, 1912, and is worthy of the attention of the Senate. It is as follows: Fear in all its different phases of expression, such as worry, anxiety, anger, jealousy, timidity, is the greatest enemy of the human race. It has robbed man of more happiness and efficiency, has made more men cowards, more people failures, or forced them into mediocrity, than any- thing else. Fear has a paralyzing, blighting influence upon the whole being. It Impoverishes the blood and destroys health by impairing the digestion, cutting off nutrition, and lowering the physical and mental vitality. It crushes hope, kills courage, and so enfeebles the mind's action that it can not create or produce. Many people are afraid of nearly everything. They are afraid of a draft, afraid of getting chilled or taking cold, afraid to eat what they want, to venture in business matters for fear of losing their money, afraid of public opinion. They have a perfect horror of what Mrs. Grundy thinks. They are afraid hard times are coming, afraid of poverty, afraid of failure, afraid the crops are going to fail, afraid of lightning and tornadoes. Their whole lives are filled with fear, fear, fear. ******* Fear strangles originality, daring, boldness ; it kills individuality and weakens all the mental processes. Great things are never done under a sense of fear of some impending danger. All work done when one is suffering from a sense of fear or foreboding has little efficiency. Fear always indicates weakness, the presence of cowardice. What a slaugh- terer of years, what a sacrificer of happiness and ambitions, what a ruiner of careers this monster has been ! One of the worst forms of fear is that of a foreboding of some evil to come, which hangs over the life like a threatening cloud over a volcano before an eruption. Some people arc always suffering from this peculiar phase of fear, They are apprehensive that some great misfortune is coming to them, that they are going to lose their money or their position : or they are afraid of accident or that some fatal disease is developing in them. If their children are away, they see them in all sorts of catastrophes railroad accidents or shipwrecks. They are always picturing the worst. ******* 41017 109G9 45 The fear habit shortens life, for it impairs all the physiological proc- esses. Its power is shown by the fact that it actually changes the chemical composition of the secretions of the body. Fear victims not only age prematurely, but they also die prematurely. Oh, how many victims fear has put into the grave. It has driven people into all sortg of crime through unbalancing the mind. It has caused terrible trage- dies in human life. There is not a single redeeming feature about fear or any of it3 numerous progeny. It is always, everywhere, an unmitigated curse. A man who is filled with fear is not a real man. He is a puppet, a manikin, an apology of a man. Quit fearing things that may never happen, just as you would quit any bad practice which has caused you suffering. Mr. President, the dangers of disease and death are kept constantly in the public mind. People are warned to avoid this and shim that, and taught to believe this means one .disease and that another, until the weak in body or mind are brought under the influence of this powerful suggestion and the strong are not always able to throw it off. Man is afraid of the food he eats, the water he drinks, and the air he breathes. Pos- sessed with fear, he shuns certain foods that he thinks are hurtful, he shuts out the fresh air, and drinks boiled or bot- tled water. He has become a very craven, the slave of his unreasonable fears. I have heard a Member of this body declare that he could not ride from the Capitol to the Office Building in a closed subway without taking cold, and therefore he walked while others rode. Another is afraid to take a drink of ice water, because if he drinks it it paralyzes the stomach. Last summer when the thermometer hovered about 90 the Sergeant at Arms had electric fans placed in the Senate to relieve the heat, but if one was put in motion it was ordered stopped. Some one was afraid it would give him cold. And so it would, probably ; not because a little fresh air could give anyone cold, but because of his fears. If he could learn not to be afraid, and no one else were afraid for him, he would never take cold. Job said, " That which I greatly feared hath come upon me." So it is with the man of to-day. To fear disease is to invite it. Disease is wholly mental. The material body, without mind, has no sensation. Destroy consciousness and the body does not feel. The condition of mind reacts on the body and makes it sick or well, according to the thought either of the individual or others who think about him. Hatred, malice, revenge, fear, and other wrong thoughts are the breeders of disease. Every competent physician will tell you so. And yet these same physicians are doing more to excite the fears of the people than everybody else. And they are here now, urging Congress to authorize the Government to put out printed information that will feed the fears of the peo- ple of the whole Nation and engender more diseases and sacri- fice more lives than ever the doctors will heal or save. If the people could once be taught to think and talk health and not disease, harmony and not discord, faith and trust and not fear, life and not death, a health department need not be thought of. If the people could only be taught to trust in an omnipotent and good God instead of the doctor and his remedies, and thereby cast off all fear, disease would be unknown. To one having some of this faith and trust that dispels fear in the degree that one trusts and understands, the thought that is 4191710969 40 bestowed upon disease, sickness, and death, and the power that is given to them in the human mind is little less than appalling. Mr. President, I can not keep silent and allow this Nation to become a party to this monstrous propaganda of fear and dev- astation of its people. Some of the doctors have realized this and sounded a warn- ing. Dr. P. L. Myer, of Toledo, Ohio, in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association as far back as 1906, says: Had we not better hedge a little before the great lay mind grasps the fact that they were frightened Into panicky laws and restrictions over will-o'-the-wisp possibilities and not probabilities or actualities? ******* With^all the wonderful strides of our science in 100 years, we still have the public as abjectly cowed to-day, before the omnipotent hosts of bacteria, as it was by the evil spirits and ghosts and witches of a past century. And in 1910 the Journal of the American Medical Associa- tion has this very pertinent statement of prevailing conditions : An aversion to unnecessary contamination by noxious microorganisms may well serve as a protection against disease; but an insane terror of infection may make life very miserable without appreciably length- ening or strengthening it. In the first place, the paradise of faultless prophylaxis the aseptic Eden which seems to be the ideal of the germophobes is unattainable. We can not banish microorganisms from our human world ; we can only try to keep that balance of con- ditions most favorable to the life of the human organism. In the second place, the attitude of mind, cultivated in the perpetual endeavor to evade disease, may be almost a worse evil than the disease itself ; certainly it furnishes the best excuse for the existence of those sects which deny the existence of all disease and the usefulness of any pre- cautions. " Life is a dangerous thing at best, and very few of us get out of it alive," while those of us who spend all our energies trying to elude its incidental risks might almost as well never have lived at all. Health is largely a matter of a proper balance of op- posing forces, and that balance can be preserved, in part, by cultivat- ing a due measure of indifference to inevitable dangers. From the Ohio Medical Journal of July, 1898, after comment- ing upon the annual meeting of the American Medical Associa- tion of that year, this is interesting : The political part of the convention continues to be managed by medical politicians ; these gentlemen constitute a sect apart, coming chiefly from St. Louis and Louisville, and who come with everything cut and dried. To which the Atlantic Medical Weekly of August G, replied: But granting it, * most of the members attend the sessions of the American Medical Association for other reasons and with other purposes than to engage in political bickerings, and are only too glad there are others to do this work for them. * * * They get but an empty honor, forgotten before the next session, and have a great deal of labor for their pains. WOULD FORCE LEGISLATION. From a report of the one hundred and third annual meeting of the Medical Society of the State of New York, held at Albany, January, 1909, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, February G, 1909: If the Incoming national administration fails to establish a national department of health the public health committees of the State medical societies should add their force in making public sentiment sufficiently Strong to force this movement through. 41917 109G9 47 Dr. Larkin, of Hillsboro, Ohio, in an address to his local county society, a branch of the American Medical Association, said : We want to make the influence of the county society so strong that no decent, self-respecting physician can be without its portals. We want to make its local influence so great that no legislator can ignore its warnings, and when we ask in the name of humanity that certain laws be enacted for the general good they will heed our demands and be only ready to do our commands. From the remarks of Dr. H. A. Beaudoux, president of the North Dakota State Medical Association, at the twenty-second annual session of the same, held at Fargo, May, 1909, and pub- lished in the Journal of the American Medical Association, June 5, 1009: "\Yt> nre better equipped to pass sane and important legislation than any other body of men and to make ourselves felt In public matters owing to our intimate relations, as family physicians and advisers, with the voters throughout the State. tt seems that Prof. Irving Fisher, who was chairman of the committee of one hundred, must have had some doubt of the sincerity and unselfish humanitariaiiism of the American Med- ical Association, for in Dr. McCormack's report of the executive committee, June, 1910, at St. Louis, he has this to say about the professor : I was impressed at the outset of our acquaintance that he had not seen the best side of our profession and had some of the prejudices, only more frankly expressed, of the average- layman as to its aims and attainments ; and asked him to make the same careful study of its plans of organizations and purposes that he had given to other problems, with the result that he soon became one of our niusi appreciated friends. Of Senator OWEN he writes: Soon another great layman, Senator ROBERT L. OWEN, of Oklahoma, entered the lists as our official advocate in the National Senate. * * * It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to be intimately associated with these two lay friends of ours, OWEN and Fisher, etc. Sometimes some more conservative counsels intervened, but they were promptly suppressed. At a council of the associa- tion an attempt was made by one of their number to check the political activities of the organization, but it was a melancholy failure. The following account of it appeared in the Illinois Medical Journal of March, 1912 : Dr. Henry B. Favill, of Chicago, presided and uttered an address which was quite remarkable, and led up to the most dramatic climax it has ever been our privilege to witness. Dr. Favill's remarks were to the effect that the activities of the profession in political matters had brought about considerable criticism from a portion of the public. We had been accused among other things of being " a professional trust," of using " trade-union methods," etc. Because of these disa- greeable statements Dr. Favill thought it the part of wisdom to at once abandon our efforts along political lines and depend altogether on our efforts to educate the people. THE DKAMATIC CLIMAX. Scarcely had the chairman taken his seat, ready to call for the next order of business, when Dr. J. M. McOormack, of Kentucky, sprang to his feet, and in eloquent language called attention to the stand taken by the parent organization at the Los Angeles meeting. The repre- sentatives of the organized profession, duly elected and clothed with plenary power, had pledged the organization at its annual meeting to a continuation of the contest which it had commenced, and instructed 4191710969 48 Its committees and its journal to use their utmost endeavors to pro- cure the passage of the Owen bill. If it should go out to the public that this conference, after all that had been said and done, had to-day taken a different stand, and should by its silence give consent to the doctrinaire sentiments of the chairman, a blow would be struck at the good faith of the profession from which it would never recover. Mr. OWEX, who had taken his life and his political fortune in his hands in advocating our cause, would go down to a disgraceful defeat, and the blood of this sacrifice would be on our hands. It has been tlie studied effort of the American Medical Asso- ciation to secure teachers, particularly in the public schools, to cooperate with them. In this way they could reach the young people and bring them under their influence, 'thereby securing the influence of the teachers themselves as affecting public sentiment. Dr. McCormack, who was the leading spirit in all efforts to extend their organization and increase its strength and influence, had this to say on that subject at the Atlantic City session ia June, 1909: I am constantly impressed with the possibilities of this work before educational bodies and schools, and especially in institutions which are engaged in preparing teachers, editors, lawyers, clergymen, and other leaders of public opinion for their life work. The popular distrust of the profession, ordinarily passive but ready to become active and to be utilized by the various quack and other antagonistic interests, can scarcely be overestimated, and probably can never be eradicated from the once infected adult mind. The experience of recent years has convinced me that with the aid of the teachers and schools, an aid which will be curs for the asking anywhere, a generation of voters and legislators can soon be so trained that the vast" interests represented by preventive medicine will come to be appreciated as among the most important and cheaply and easily conserved of the Nation's resources, the unselfish aims and purposes of the profession will be recognized, and constructive statesmanship can be submitted for the time-serving po- litical methods which have so long obtained in our public affairs, local. State, and National. For these and other reasons which can not be enlarged on here, I would urge such an alliance between physicians and teachers in every section of the country as will make all that it in- volves in our work matters of common knowledge. In short, the future, as I see It, was never so full of promise, if the people can be frankly taken into our confidence and more sense and greater dignity can be made to obtain in our relations with the public and public affairs. The doctor seemed to be impressed with the idea, evidently well founded, that the doctors composing the organization are not in public favor. He seemed to think that an alliance with a respectable body like the teachers would relieve them from this feeling of distrust. Unfortunately, too many teachers have unwittingly been made the instruments of the association for such a purpose. The following article entitled "The county board of health," by Dr. W. S. Rankin, secretary of the State board of health of Raleigh, N. C., shows something of the length to which they are going in the effort to mold public sentiment and secure outside help: EDUCATIONAL WORK. Here Is a vast field of unlimited possibilities wherein the board of health may do its most important work. The educational efforts of the board of health have three possible agencies through which to find expression, the public school, the pulpit, and the press. The receptive and pliable mind of developing citizenship Is the most prolific soil in which to sow the seed of sanitary regeneration. Cer- tainly there is nothing more vital to the future welfare of all the people than that our school children shall be taught the value of health, that it is fundamental to all other possessions, and that it is a t'jing that can be easily conserved or easily wasted. There is a law 4191710969 49 that requires our public schools to teach Ritchie's Primer of Sanitation to all pupils in the seventh grade. County boards of health should see to it that this law is rigidly observed. In the December Bulletin we suggested the purchase hy the county of an acetylene lantern ami slides. The entire outfit can be obtained for $100. "if the county board of health would Invite the cooperation of the county medical society and work out with that organization a program of lectures to be given by the members of the county medical society to the various public schools in the county, nothing would go further in aronsing the sanitary conscience of the county. The lectures should be given at night in tbe public schoolhouses. A week preceding the lecture the county superintendent of schools should forward to the teacher of the school a quantity of hano*bills announcing the lecture, and these could he distributed through the school children throughout the community. If the county mediciaj society does not care itself to prepare a set of standard lectures on important sanitary subjects, the State board of health will be very glad to furnish these lectures already prepared, so that little time will need to he given the matter by the individual members of the county medicial society. For fuller detail in regard to this plan see 313 of the December (1911) Bulletin. Another very effective method for emphasizing the importance of the study of sanitation in the schools and for securing the interest of the children, and one that has been put to extensive use by many progress- ive communities, is the offering of prizes for compositions on public health subjects. Asheville, Wilmington, and Smithfleld, among other towns in North Carolina, have adopted this idea. A county in Alabama obtained such splendid results in increasing the interest of the people in matters of sanitation through a series of prizes offered in the public schools of the coxurty for compositions on tuberculosis, sanitation, flies, etc.. as to have attracted national attention. What has been, done iu Alabama can be done in North Carolina, ** The county medical society should nse Its influence with the news- papers of their county to secure the publication of articles bearing upon public health. The newspapers of North Carolina recognize the im- portance of this public opinion and are lending the use of their columns unstintedly for the promotion of public health. County beards of health should keep the editor of the county paper informed in regard to local conditions and events that affect the public health. The State board of health prepares weekly newspaper articles on the subject of public health and sends them to all the newspapers of the State. If your county paper has not been publishing some of these articles, the board of health might call attention to the possible oversight and use its influence in securing more frequent references to this matter, which should deeply concern the public. Mr. President, the full title of Ritchie's primer, referred to -fn the last article, is " Primer of sanitation : Being a simple work on disease germs and how to fight them." And the following are the subjects treated in this so-called work on sanitation: Why the study of disease germs is important. The cells of the body. Disease germs and how they get into the body. The struggle between the body and the germs. Bacteria. The skin. The pus-forming bacteria. Tetanus (lockjaw). The air passages and the lungs. Diphtheria. Pneumonia. Influenza, whooping cough, and colds. Tuberculosis. The treatment of consumption, Disease germs in dust. The alimentary .canal. Typhoid fever. Diseases caused by relatives of the typhoid germ. Other bacterial diseases of the intestines. Disease germs in water. Other bacterial disedses. Protozoa. Malarial fever and yellow fever. 41917 109G9 4 50 Mosquitoes. Smallpox. Other protozoan diseases. Intestinal worms. The importance of sanitation. The housefly. Disease germs in food. Disinfection. Unhygienic habits. Public sanitation. What governments can do to preserve the public health. Practical sanitation. This is the kind of reading that is being offered to the chil- dren of the country and attempted to be forced upon them, for the study of the book has already been made compulsory in the State of North Carolina and, I understand, in some other States. There has been much complaint that the earnings of the doctors have been falling off. Hence the extraordinary efforts through political means and unjust restrictive legislation to re- trieve their fortunes. At the meeting of the San Francisco Medical Society in January, 1899, Dr. Charles G. Kuhlmau read a paper in which he showed that the average earning capacity of California's 3,000 doctors should be $5,000 each per annum, but because "irregular" physicians were allowed to practice and of bad debts it was only $850, or one-sixth of what it should be, entailing a loss to the " regular " doctors of that State alone of $10,000,000 per annum. That was certainly a bad showing for the regulars. He urged as a remedy " a better organization of the medical profession into a distinct corporation and which should be, to be perfect in its results, not merely local or State but national in its char- acter." The doctor's advice was taken. Now the regulars have just such an organization as he hoped for, and it has not hesi- tated to use every means within its reach, political and other- wise, to circumvent the irregulars and put them out of business. To this end they have spent millions of dollars, and the people are no better off, nor have the regulars increased their earning capacity or increased for themselves the public respect or con- fidence. Their case is no better, but seemingly worse, than it was before, as indicated by the following extract from the New York State Journal of Medicine of March 12, 1910: The profession has not fared well at the hands of legislators. The legislation secured to elevate the standard of the profession and protect the public from quacks has resulted, with the help of the same legis- latures, in turning turkish-bath rubbers into doctors, and the optician Las succeeded in usurping some of the most delicate functions of the physician. If the legislature continues to license successive schools of quackery, we may well question the wisdom of State control of license to practice medicine. On account of this and on account of the general education in hygiene and preventive medicine, the income of the pro- fession has been greatly diminished. The remedy would he to increase the fees, but this could not be effected without thorough organization and loyalty to each other on the part of the doctors. The New York Journal says, further, that it is the universal opinion that an agreement in regard to fees would not be respected, and that this assertion is striking proof that there is real distress in our ranjcs and that medi- cine is degenerating into a vulgar game of grab or sordid struggle for mere existence. Thks shows a very distressing condition of things for the regulars; but it never seems to occur to them that the error mny be with them. It is inconceivable to them that they could by any possibility be " irregular " and some other mode of 41817 109GO 51 healing the true or even a better one than theirs. It is not theirs to learn, but to stick dogmatically to the contention that no one can be right but them. Otlier people hare seen their error and the falsity of their ideas of healing, but they seem incapable of appreciating a patent fact that millions of people have learned to their inestimable advantage. Mr. President, there is still another side of this important question that should not be allowed to escape the attention of the Senate. It is this: I have already pointed out that tke medical activity of the Government in all its branches is in the hands of and completely under the influence and control of one school of medicine, and every publication sent out as informa- tion coming from the National Government is now, and will continue to be under this bill, the views of one school of medi- cine, and that a school which has been largely discredited. When the Government becomes the publisher and distributor of information obtained by and relating to this school of medicine, it establishes a State medicine and makes it strictly sectarian. This is bound to continue just so long as one school of medicine is intrusted with the management of health matters. It may- be said that this bill provides against discrimination as between different, schools of medicine. But while the bureau is under the control of one school and no physician or surgeon of any other school is employed by the Government, such a provision amounts to nothing. The Government has maintained this sec- tarianism in medicine for over 40 years. Its health activities have been completely dominated by one sect to the exclusion of all others. The Government has no more right to sanction or support sectarianism in medicine than in religion. One is just as ranch of a violation of the freedom of the citizen as the other. There are millions of people in this country who believe in the homeo- pathic and eclectic modes of healing, and millions more who do not believe in drug healing of any kind. But not one of these has any recognition whatever by the Government as represented by the present medical bureaus, nor will they have under this bill if it becomes a law. By these publications the Government is simply promoting the views of one school of medicine to the exclusion of all others. And worse still, they are not a report of established or known facts, but of mere opinions opposed to the views of other equally competent schools of medicine, and generally found in the end to be erroneous. Such a publicity burean shuts out the views, opinions, investigations, and discoveries of every other school of medicine, composed, in part, of some of the ablest men and brightest minds in the country. If we take the publications of the present health bureaus, and the people of this country were dependent upon them for their information, they would never know that a homeopathic, eclectic, or any other school of medi- cine or healing existed. And if the bureaus should speak on the subject, it would be to discredit any school but the one. If such publications are of any use to the public, they should be made nousectarian and inform the people of every discovery, advance, or change in health affairs from whatever source and without bias or prejudice. This could never be expected from present bureaus or any consolidation of them. The chief reason is that this legislation 41917 109G9 52 is sought by and in the interest of one school of medicine. No other school is asking for or favors it. The people do not ask for it and do not understand it. SEBUM THERAPY. Mr. President, the old school of medicine has now taken up the idea of serum therapy, so called, or the prevention of disease by inoculation of supposed disease-preventing serums extracted from diseased animals. In the case of smallpox we have had this alleged preventive for many years. The efficacy of vaccination has never been proved. It has from the be- ginning been stoutly denied, and ample proof has been given tiiat it is not a preventive, notwithstanding the National Gov- ernment, and State, county, and city authorities compel the people, including young children, to submit to the poisoning of their blood by this loathsome treatment. The National Gov- ernment forces it upon its soldiers and sailors by the strictest penalties. Children whose parents are opposed to it are denied school privileges, and other penalties are imposed to compel submission to vaccination, whether the people want it or not. It is almost beyond belief that any enlightened Government would thus trespass upon the liberties and personal rights of its citizens in such ways upon the mere opinion of doctors, and opinions that have never been substantiated, but have been discredited and disproved over and over again. And now the doctors say typhoid fever can be prevented by a serum that has been dis- covered lately, and the Government at once accepts this opinion and forces it upon its soldiers, sailors, and employees. Then the school children will be forced to accept this new and equally dangerous system of poisoning. Like remedies are being dis- covered for other diseases, until everybody will have to submit to have his body inoculated with various poisons, on the theory that he will thus be made immune from every known disease. The whole thing is too absurd to talk about. It results from the fact that the doctors have learned that the old remedies will neither prevent nor heal disease, and they are losing their business and public confidence. The administration of these pretended preventive remedies is a very lucrative business, and when people are compelled to take them it is easy to get patients. The practice of vaccination is condemned by physicians and scientists and all classes of people. The following from the late Moncure D. Conway, one of the great men of this country, illus- trates what men of learning and information think about it : A considerable number of good people are just now suffering fines and Imprisonments because they will not suffer their children to be vacci- nated. Their very excellencies as parents cause them to be dealt with as malefactors. Here, say, are two men : One gives uninf>uiriug assent to what other thoughtless people assent to ; he doesn't care much what happens to his child, delegates to usage the duty of thinking for it, gives it up to be baptised, catechised, vaccinated. Hogged at school to anything that is usual, whether right or not. The other man gives no uninquiring assent ; he studies carefully that his family may be nour- ished with truth and maintained by such laws of health as he can dis- cover. Now, of these two the careless parent is favored by the vacci- nation law, while the thoughtful, anxious, and devoted parent is pun- ished unless lie adopt a prescribed opinion. A law which thus favors parental indifference and discourages careful thought and conscientious devotion to the chlFQ's welfare reverses the spirit of all just laws. Of course it is equally probable that the thinking parent may be able to agree with the majority ; but he may not, and in this case he suffers 4191710969 53 for bis inquiry, while the other escapes no man being so sare rrom the results of thought, erroneous or right, as he who never 'thinks at all. Vaccination has been seriously challenged by men of learning. The misgivings concerning it have not arisen from ignorance and prejudice, but from men of science and medical men. These arguments have been sufficiently strong to shake the convictions of eminent thinkers and political leaders such as Herbert Spencer. Prof. F. W. Newman. Dr. Garth Wilkinson, William Ewart Gladstone, W. E. Forster, John Bright in the justice of the law. and of some of them in vaccination itself. The arguments which have influenced such men leaders ot large numbers of people- can not be met justly except by fact and argu- ment. To answer by mere force is tyranny. The reasoning objectors have been answered only by fine and imprisonment, which are as gen- uinely persecutions as if inflicted for the nonbaptism of children, on the ground that such children may become foci of heretical infection. To those who dissent from it vaccination is merely a medical dogma. To coerce parents into its practice rests upon that assumption of medical infallibility which has again and again been proved false, as in the instance of inoculation, once generally practiced, now penal ; as in the example of bleeding, that barbarous practice to which Washington and Cavour fell victims while opening new vistas of civilization. Even were physicians unanimous in their faith in vaccination, they could not claim infallibility after having so often erred, while, as a matter of fact, there is less unanimity in that profession about vaccination than there was at one time in favor of the now discredited inoculation. And tliis is the way the Government punishes its citizens for presuming to deny the right of its officers to poison their blood by this process: [From the St. Lonls Post-Dispatch.] MEDICAL, TTRAXXY IJf NAVT. Resistance to the advice and Instructions of medical officers In the Army or Navy is construed as insubordination as serious as resistance to the orders of other commissioned officers. Because they refused to submit themselves to the new antityphoid inoculation, a number of the crew of the battleship Vermont, in Cuban waters, are being punished as virtual mutineers. There was a time when disobedience to tne orders of a chaplain Involved as grave consequence_s to members of the organized military forces. Army and Nary policies which make mutineers of faithful men with intelligence and individuality enough to object to the intro- duction of noisome, poisonous substances into healthy bodies can not commaad popular approTak If vaccinations for various diseases were prescribed a condition at the time of enlistment, the men would have the option of consenting to it or declining to enter the service. To impose after enlistment vaccination on men in violation of their will and judgment is a misuse of military authority. It can not be justified on the ground of neces- sity in the absence of an epidemic. So far as typhoid is concerned, it can be combated in entirely unobjectionable ways through sanitation. This is a subject with which Congress should deal. When one conies to consider this subject, the evidences against its compulsory imposition are so numerous that one can select but few of them for use in an address of this kind. No one can truthfully deny that thousands of lives, many of them of little children, have been sacrificed to this vile practice. But, again, the people do not or will not think for themselves. To them the opinion of some doctor who knows no more than they do about it is sufficient and they go no farther. Those who do think for themselves and refuse to submit to the treatment for their children must lose their right to send them to the public schools. If the doctors agreed abont it. it would not be so bad. But they do not Many of the ablest doctors of all times since it came into use have denied that k is of any value and assert that it is n most dangerous remedy. In an appeal to the people of Pennsylvania by certain inhabitants of Baugor, Northampton County, they say: The inhabitants of Bangor, Northampton County, in public meeting assembled, on Friday evening, March 29, 1907, issue this appeal to the 1,191710969 54 people of Pennsylvania TO Join with them in restoring the principles of civil liberty in this Commonwealth, which have been outraged by the enforcement of the compulsory vaccination laws. On November 5 last, one of the brightest and best of children, Hershel, the 8-year-old SOD of Frank N. Love, a respected citizen of Bangor, was vaccinated in order to obtain admission to school, as re- quired by the 12th section of the act of June 18, 1805. Within 17 days he was dead, after suffering what no tongue can tell. The poison, was put into his little body, but the doctors could not get It out. The father and mother of this victim of State-enforced blood poison- Ing have one remaining child, a little girt, who is now of school age. But a cruel law, which still remains unrepealed upon the statute books of this State, denies to this child the right of education guaranteed by our Constitution, unless her already griei-stricken parents again make a sacrifice to tiie Moloch of vacclnation. The tendency of vaccination to spread smallpox and its worth lessness AS a preventive have been illustrated in our own State, where the dis- ease has been most prevalent and fatal In those localities where vacci- nation has been general. In Philadelphia during the 10 years imme- diately preceding the enforcement of the vaccination school law, from 1885 to 1894, there were 113 deaths from smallpox, while during the four years from 1901 to 1904, when the law was being strictly en- forced, there died tn the Municipal Hospital of smallpox 7GO persons. It i& estimated that the vaccinations performed during that outbreak were about 500,000 In number. In Marietta, where vaccine is manu- factured from the virus of smallpox, there were more than 50 cases in 1905. But in Erie, where it has been found impossible to enforce vac- cination, there has been only one death from smallpox in 25 years, and in Wayncsboro, where the entire population is opposed to vaccination, there has not been a case of smallpox since the Civil War, nor a death from that disease for G4 years. The spread of smallpox is, however, one ot the least of the evils Chargeable against vaccination, for physicians who have independently investigated the subject tell us that the words of Scripture, that " The life of all flesh is the blood thereof," are literally true, and (hat the cor- ruption of the blood defiles the fountain of life, making disease neces- sary to purify the system and prevent degeneration. Vaccination stands indicted by the common sense of mankind, the teachings of religion, and the voices of the world's greatest scientists and sanitarians, including Alexander von Humbolclt, Florence Nightingale, John 1'ickering, Sir William J. Collins, Herbert Spencer, Alfred Russel Wallace, Alexander Milton Ross, Montague R. Level-son, Charles Creighton, Edgar M. Crook- shank, and many others of like eminence. It has poisoned the blood of countless multitudes and placed upon its victims the stamp of consump- tion, syphilis, cancer, and many other terrible diseases. ** If the functions of government were strictly limited to the exercise of its just powers, grounded in nature, and derived from the consent of the governed, and if all arbitrary authority were abolished, there would be no compulsory vaccination laws, and the history of Pennsylvania during the last two years would not have been sullied by the slaughter of Dale lams, of Washington County ; Lottie Bentzel, of Cumberland County ; George Baker, of York County, John L. Hilt, of Lancaster County, Beatrice Bausonville, of Pittsburgh, and many other little inno- cents by State-enforced blood poisoning. The attitude of certain political doctors who arc members of the legislature in presuming to dictate to more than 6,000,000 people in this Commonwealth concerning their own flesh and blood, encouraged as it has been by the attempt of health officials to use the power and pat- ronage of their offices to influence the course of legislation, we denounce as being opposed to the spirit of our institutions. ** When a few political doctors, animated by the selfish and Infamous desire of a clique in the medical profession to increase its profits by diseasing the entire population of this State, can block the remedial legislation demanded by -an overwhelming majority of the people an issue is raised which must be carried to every hamlet and fireside. Shall a politico-medical oligarchy, supported by the public revenues, be per- mitted to compel any person to submit to a surgical operation, or shall the free institutions guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States be maintained in this Commonwealth? Shall a union of medicine and State be permitted to enslave the bodies of men, women, and children in a community in which the principle's of religious liberty and tolera- tion have been upheld for two centuries and more? 4191710969 55 Mr. J. P. McLean has this to say in the Dayton (Ohio) News of October 26, 1910: AGAINST VACCINATION'. EDITOR DAILY NEWS : I will avail myself of the opportunity of con- tributing an article on " "Vaccination " for the reason that I believe that this cult is the greatest crime against nature ever recognized, and is far worse than war, famine, and pestilence. One article will not permit me to go into details, nor treat the subject as I would desire. The fact that nnti\accination societies are numerous in Great Britain, America, and Canada and otfoer countries, indicates that there is a widespread dissent and opposition to the cult. If to this be added the names of the great- est pathologrsts, physicians, surgeons, naturalists, statesmen, etc., then it is well to panse and consider. I will here confine myself to some of the reasons why the ranks of the opposition, are extending, though I may not follow the natural eegnenee. In all probability the opposition to the cult arises principally from the fact that it is a propagator of a fataj disease. This point is easily proven from the fact " that all lymph, however pellucid, does really contain blood cells." (Unanimous opinion of the Royal Commission on Vaccinations, final report, p. 112.) If, then, vaccine matter always con- tains blood cells, then whatever disease the source of the suppfy may have, will be propagated in the victim. Dr. Alexander Wilder, the mos't brilliant and versatile physician America ever produced, says: "Con- sumption follows in the footsteps of vaccination as directly as an effect ever follows a cause. The vaccine poison being the product of decaying animal tissue, and often tuberculosis in character, must naturally pro- duce its like wherever it finds the suitable opportunity." (Sec his"" Fal- lacy of Va-cclnation," p. 13.) He quotes from Prof. Bartlett, of the medicine department of the University of New York, who stated that " in 2O8 children who had been vaccinated. 88 died of tubercular con- sumption and 170 of other maladies. In 05 who were not vaccinated 80 only died of consumption and 03 of other diseases." The Medical Times and Gazette, London, for January 1, 1854, called attention to the fact that consumption had widely spread since (he in- troduction of vaccination. That during the 10 preceding years it had slain 08.204 In the metropolis alone. The report of the registrar general for 1CG9 gare the number of deaths at 53,794 from the canse alone. Dr. Wilder is supported by such men as St. Gervais. Hufelaud, Hertwig, Grisolle, Constadt, Bedaur, who also enumerated about 80 more diseases. Dr. .Tasuco Copland (Dictionary of Medicine, vol. 3, pp. 140, 141) says : " Notwithstanding the laudation bestowed upon vaccination. I be- lieve that as the lapse of time allows the fact to be more fully demon- strated it will be found to be a not unfruitful source of scrofula and tuberceles." Even Dr. Felix von Niemeyer says that vaccination in chil- dren may leave behind it fhe germs of a disposition to consumption (p. 22). He further adds: "I must protest against unconditional com- pulsory vaccination, particularly during the Itrst two years of life." I might extend this, but enough has been said. Cancer is another rapidly increasing disease. Does any person know even of a single case of this disease in a human being who was never vaccinated? It 5s a frightful disease, and fatal. Several years ago Dr. Wilder wrote hi that of his own knowledge he knew this disease to be bovine. Hntchinson (Illustrations of Classical Surgery, vol. 1, p. 141) has illustrated a case of lupus in and around a vaccination scar, and cases of a like nature have been described by Besnier (Annales of Dermatologie at de Syphiligraphie, vol. 10, p. 576). Lennaoder (Upsala Lakareforennings Forhandlinger. vol. 25, pp. 65-70) ; and Colcott Fox (The Practitioner, vol. G, p. 500). Judging by reports, lockjaw Is not uncommon after vaccination. I need only to refer to the statements of Dr. J. H. Cottman (New Or- leans Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 2. p. 788), Dr. George Ross (The Southern Clinic, vol. 1, p. 468), Dr. Theodore Dimon (St. Louis Courier of Medicine, vol. 7, p. 310), Dr. H. J. Berkeley (Maryland Med- ical Journal, vol. f>, p. 241). Dr. W. T. Bates (Transactions of the South Carolina Medical Association, vol. 32, p. 1O5), etc. Without multiplying the list of diseases with accompanying refer- ences, I will conclude this portion oi the article by stating that the celebrated physician, J. J. G. Wilkinson, gives a list of 50 different dis- eases caused by vaccination. Dr. Alfred R. Wallace, the most eminent of living naturalists, estimates that vaccination is the annual cause of 10,000 inocular diseases In Great Britain. 1 presume the Dayton library has his " Wonderful Century." If so, then read wh'at he says on the vaccination delusion. Perhaps it may be well at this point to cnll attention to Circular 147, issued June 16, 1909, by the Department of Agriculture, which re- 41917 10969 56 lares to the outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease in cattle In Penn- sylvania, Maryland, and Michigan during November, 1908. The origin of the disease was traced to 2i heifers which had been previously used for the. production of vaccine virus. It is believed that vaccination produces the soil for the propagation of smallpox. As vaccination is a septic poison, it would not be difficult to maintain this position. Turning to the Brittanica, ninth edition, volume 24, page 20, wfi read that Prussia was the best vaccinated cojntry in Europe In 1871, yet, during the epidemic of that year its mortality was higher (69.S39J than any other northern State ; that the Bavarian contingent, which was rcvaccinated without exception, had five times the death rate from smallpox than thdt of the Bavarian civil population : that in Bavaria in 1871, of 30,742 cases of smallpox, 29,429 with 3,994 deaths had been vaccinated ; that at Bromley in 1S&1 there was a total of 43 casen, including 16 confluent, all vaccinated; that at CologHfe in 1870 the first imvaccinared person attacked by smallpox was the one hundred and seventy-fourth in order of time ; at Bonn the same year the forty-second ; and at Liegnity in 1871 the two hundred and twenty-fifth. Take the recent cases in the United States Navy, where all are revaccinated. when the armored cruiser Washington was three days out (Jan. 22, 1910} from Yokohama, smallpox broke out and for three days treated as chickenpox. The vessel reached Honolulu on the 28th with three cases, one of which proved fatal. Here the ship was fumigated. The vessel left February 3, and by the 6th three cases developed, and on the 14th arrived at Port Townsend with five cases, where the patients were taken ashore, three of whom died. The vessel was held in quarantine until the 22d. The vessel arrived at San Francisco on March 4, reporting nine cases with four deaths. By the advocates of the cult, Germany is pointed to with pride from heing free from smallpox on account of her rijtid laws for vaccination. Let us see. Durine; the week ending July 9, 1910, in the British Parliament, a question was askrd concerning a recent report of small- pox in Germany. The Right Hon. Sir John Burns, president of the local Government board, replied that in Prussia 690 cases, with 107 deaths, had been notified. With the imperfect record above set forth there Js sufficient evidence for ns to believe with Lord Clifton that vaccination is " legal child murder," or with others who declare it to be a " ghastly delusion." FRANKLIN, OHIO, October 26, 1310. Mr. President, the facts rnd conditions are so clearly stated in this article and others that I have cited, that but little need be said by me. The sentiment against enforced vaccination is growing in volume and strength every day. Jt is supported only by fear and confidence in medical opinions on the subject, opinions actuated in the main by self -interest. Of course, there are many honest and conscientious people who believe in vac- cination, and they are easily convinced of the preventive effects of other serum remedies. I venture to say, however, that there are very few competent doctors who believe in any of these remedies. But, Mr. President, their Inefficacy Is not the worst of it. If this were all, they would at least be harmless; but it has been proved over and over again that they are worse than harmless they are dangerous to health and life. Thousands of lives have been lost by the most violent and loathsome dis- eases by the use of these remedies. That is clearly shown by the communications I have just read. And the doctors are not only doubtful of the new serum remedies that are coming into use, but they are fearful of their effects in causing and trans- ferring other and new diseases. They already have a new dis- ease, called the " serum disease." The Haf tford Times, as far back as 1908, had this to say on the subject, most of the facts being taken from the ^Inter-State Medical Journal: DOCTORS ARE ^VGKRIKD OVKR SKP.DM DISEASES INJURIOUS SYMPTOMS FOUND TO FOLLOW INJECTIONS OF ANTITOXINS IN SOME CASKS. Physicians are discussinz an ailment to which the name " serum disease" is now applied. The name is used to describe various groups 41017 10069 57 Of symptoms occurring after hypodermic Injections of sera nsefl ttt combat several acute diseases. The phenomena arising from the ad- ministration of normal, antitoxic or bactericidal serum at first were supposed to be harmless, but this has been, disproved. "Although manifest symptons do not occur in more than one-third of all cases," says Dr. K. W. Saunders, of St. Louis, in the current issue of the Inter-State Medical Journal, " the cellular reaction to the alien serum is probably present in every individual who receives an injection, and the phenomena may bo observed to a greater or less degree if the preper tests are made." Dr. Saunders offers seine practical rules In regard to the nse of the various sera for the consideration of his fellow practitioners. He says : " Curative sera are not the harmless substances we originally supposed. Immunizing injections of serum should not bo employed when isolation will prevent the disese with a reasonable degree of, certainty and the children can be watched. " Serum should not be used In asthmatics or those suffering from Grave's disease, or the lymphatic constitution, except in developed diph- theria. The use of bactericidal sera of doubtful value should not be encouraged without careful consideration of all the possible bad effects. " If a second dose of serum must be given during the few weeks fol- lowing a primary injection, small repeated doses are preferable to a large single dose. " On the other hand, one large Initial dose Is probably less harmful and far more effective than several doses given over several days. "THE SYMPTOMS. " In some of the cases injected, varying from 10 to 40 per cent, after a period of 5 to 20 days, the patient becomes restless, and may complain of lassitude and pain in the limbs. QMiis is soon followed by the serum cxanthem, which is often acompanied by a severe itching and burning. The serum rash varies in character. Most often erythematous patches, rose red in color, will be found covering various parts of the body. Sometimes the eruption is distinctly scarlatiniforau Occasionally it resembles measles. "A very striking symptoin Is edema of the skin, which may be present only in certain circumscribed spots or more rarely involve the whole integumear, giving the person a ghastly, bloated appearance. A very serious form is the henrrh)*gic type, ill which hemorrhages occur in the skin. Fortunately this is rare. " Joint pains are frequently observed. One or more of the Joints may become very tender to touch and to movement. Muscular pains are very common. Articular swelling may be present. The wrists knees, hips, elbows, ankles, and shoulder are most frequently implicated. " That the disease is a general dLsturban-ce is proved by the fact that on elevation of temperature is frequently present. The fever may be very high. Vomiting and diarrhea occur in a small portion of cases. " In 1800, after repeated infections of diphtheria antitoxin in the babies of the Bethcsda Foundlings' Home, I had the opportunity to observe in several cases the sensitizing effect of a previous injection. " We found that many of the infants who had received an im- munizing dose six wreks previously showed a very marked supersensi- bility to the second injection. Tho symptoms of scrum disease, which are usually delayed a week or more, came on within a few minutes and with much greater violence. I reported these observations in the St. Louis Courier of Medicine in 1890. Although the explanation given then does not entirely harmonize with the present debated theories, the occurrence of a supersensibility and the clinical symptoms we're clearly depicted. " CONDITIONS OFTEN PROTRACTED. " The condition is sometimes remarkably protracted. Thus. In one Instance, in a little girl who received an injection of autidiphtheritic serum four years previously, another inaction of the so-called globulin antitoxin produced violent symptoms in a few hours. Hosenan and Anderson fouiKl tho condition persisting for several months. It is possible that this superscasitiveness may emaia throughout life in certain individuals, and that it may be transmitted to offspring, as is the case in guinea pigs. " The symptoms of this second reaction are very similar to those of th.e primary disease but supervene very soon after the second injection, sometimes within a few minutes. There may be a chill, convulsions, and sudden hisli fever. The respiration becomes very rapid, the pulse accelerated, and the patient: s-iiows great anxiety, 'in some cases a severe dermatitis, with local pain around the site of the injection, ap- pears. Bolton reported a case 'of local gangrene. 41017 100GO 58 "As far as I can learn no cases of death have occurred in human beings by the repeated injections of horse serum, yet the severe symp- toms which sometimes occur and the fact that gangrene and death are so "frequent in animals, convinces tbe clinician that antitoxic horse eerum is by no means a remedy which can be used carelessly or indis- criminately. "Another form of supersensitiveness occurs in certain individuals who have act had a previous injection of antitoxin. Quite a number of cases have teen reported, and I have seen a number myself in which the immediate serum reaction occurred, and yet the patient injected had never before had a dose of horse Kernm. No explanation can be offered for these cases at present except that of idiosyncrasy. "All efforts to rid the curative sera of the toxic substance which sensitizes have proved futile. Meule's observation that fresh sera have a greater tendency to cause rashes than older sera has been refuted experimentally by Rosenan. So far all theories offered to explain this condition have rnet all the known facts." The mistakes the doctors mak in diagnosing cases of sup- posed smallpox and other diseases would be ludicrous if they were not so serious in their consequences. Pasadena, Cal., had a conspicuous case of this kind. Dr. Stanley P. Black, health officer of that city, was called to pass upon the case of two chil- dren, pronounced their case smallpox, placarded the house, established a quarantine, and ordered over 300 children, who had not been successfully vaccinated, excluded from the schools. The indignant parents of the excluded children demanded that some other physician be called in to determine whether the sick children really had the smallpox. But the health officer, characteristic of his kind, refused to allow another doctor to see them. An indignation meeting of citizens was called and the doctor forced to allow another doctor to be called. The result was that the children were found to be suffering from poison oak. Then the health officer did the only sensible thing he had done in the whole transaction. He resigned. I could go on quoting from opinions of doctors and scientists nlmost without number showing how useless vaccination is and the lives that have been sacrificed by the use of vaccine matter, but it would serve no useful purpose. The people will not think for themselves. They rely upon, the doctors and vaccination is a rich source of revenue to them. They know 110 more about its effects than do other people, but the " faith in the doctor and his drugs and his remedies," according to Dr. Osier, is quite enough. But there Is one other thing to which I call the attention of the Senate. In the Public Health Reports of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, June 23, 1911, Asst. Snrg. Gen. John W.-Trask has this to say on the subject of the 'probable or possible effects of vaccination : That the community Is protected by vaccination may be true for certain localities, but that the protection thus afforded is general can hardly be maintained. Japan as a nation is probably as well or better protected by vaccination than is the United States, and yet in 1907-8 there was an outbreak of smallpox in Japan in which 19,101 cases were reported with G,273 deaths. Vaccination did not there modify the type of the disease to that found In America. In that outbreak among 5,215 smallpox patients 1,527 were found who had never been vaccinated. TMs is interesting, as indicating a relatively small number of nnvaccinatcd individuals. The epidemic was apparently one of con- siderable virulence, the general death rate per hundred being 42.25 among the cases in 1907 and 32.32 among those in 1908, while the deaths among the unvaccinated were 69.4 per hundred cases. Kitasato believes that the virulence of the disease varies, and that when it reaches the high point attained in Japan during 1907-8 individuals who have been previously vaccinated, and even those who have previ- ously had an attack, contract the disease. In this outbreak there were 41917 109G9 59 242 rases In seven prefectures In which the patients had previously hafl the disease. Of these, 57 died. If the nonvirulcnce of the; disease In this country Is due to protection by vaccination it would be expected that the mild cases would be fount] only in those so protected. This may be assumed from the limited in- formation available not to be the case. Records of the vaccination history of all patients would undoubtedly add much to our knowledge of the subject. That the type of the disease as seen !n the United States 1s due to the protective value of vaccination is shown not to be true for certain localities in which outbreaks of the virulent form of the disease have been reported. These outbreaks have occurred at widely separated Eoiuts, extending from Virginia and South Carolina In 1909 to Mich- ;an. Oklahoma, Texas, and Oregon in 1910. The cases of the disease reported in New i'ork City in 1910 also had a high percentage of deaths. These outbreaks showed a high virulence, the deaths being at the rate of from 10.13 at Cleveland, Ohio, to 54.05 in Oklahoma County, Okla., per hundred cases. This comes from an official medical source. It shows two things: (1) That the doctors do not know whether vaccination prevents smallpox or not. and (2) that experience tends to prove that it does not This was a hard blow to the vaccina- tion doctors. LHn, Mr. President, although this report was printed less than a year ago. a copy of it, containing this statement, can not be Lsifl to-day. I understand that it lias been reprinted with this poriion of it suppressed. I suppose Dr. Trask was duly reprimanded for telling the truth in his report. I venture the assertion that he was not a member cf the American Medical Association or ho never would have fallen into the error of discrediting a practice that brings so much money to tlie pro- fession. With all the claims made for vaccination, with a large part of the doctors its use never could have been maintained without* compulsory laws: and no such laws could ever be passed without the aid of the doctors, and that aid would not be given if it were not such an economic source of revenue to the doctors. The law that compels its use is one of the worst laws that good citizens who believe iu liberty have cause to com- plain of. Mr. John Pitcairn has this to say on the subject in the Ladies' Home Journal for May, 1910: Vaccination is the putting of an Impure thin? Into the blood a virus or poison often resulting In serious evil effects. In vogue for more than 100 years, it has been received by most persons without question. But the time is passing when people will accept a medical dogma on blind faith ; they now demand to know something about the practices to which they are called on to submit; and most Insistent of all should be the demand to know something of a practice which, like- vaccination, involves the risk of disease and of possible death. * * ' * * But I need -hardly appeal to statistics, which might be gathered from every civilized country. Consult any mother having practical acquaint- ance with the results of vaccination, as observed by herself, and you will rarely fail to hear something of its serious and lasting ill-effects. Surely these fa*:ts and figures are enough to show that vaccination involves serious risks, and to make it incumbent upon all, and espe- cially on parents, to make some inquiry at least before they submit either themselves or their children to these risks. But some one may ask, if all this is true, why does vaccination con- tinue? It continues, very largely, because it is enforced by law. Take away legal compulsion ond vaccination would not long survive. But it has been enforced almost from its birth and has thus come to be regarded as more or less a matter of course. In all modern history no other medical operation has ever been legally enforced. "But vaccina- tion needed enforcement. Without, compulsion it could never have survived, for from the very day of its introduction it has been strenu- ously opposed both by layrnon arid by membtrs of the medical profession. 41017 109G9 60 Eminent physicians, it is true, have supported it, but equally eminent physicians, and also renowned bacteriologists and statisticians, have condemned it as productive of the gravest injuries. With respect to the danger and uncertainty, generally, of these serum remedies the Journal of the American Medical As- sociation of January, 1910, has this to say : SKRUM THERAPY IN A COXDITTON OF CHAOS. There Is iio class of remedial agents on which the physician should be better informed and none, unfortunately, concerning which it is so difficult to obtain a scientific and unbiased opinion. Only one of the drugs of this class diphtheria antitoxin is recognized by the present United States Pharmncopteia ; and although some of the otners (vaccine virus, for instance) have been in use for some time, all arc the subject of such active investigation at the present time and so many new facts concerning them are being discovered that it is extremely difficult for a practitioner to keep abreast of these developments. Scientific and disinterested information concerning them is widely scattered and often not easily accessible. The result has been that physicians have become dependent to an unusual degree on the circulars issued by manufacturing houses. Some of these circulars are almost models of scientific accuracy ; others, unfortunately, are far from accurate and the directions given for the use of the "products are not even safe. And yet the National Government with all of its power is forc- ing their .use upon its unwilling citizens. [At this point Mr. WORKS yielded the floor for the day.] Tuesday, April 80, 1912. ENFORCED PHYSICAL EXAMINATION OP SCHOOL CIIILDEE??. Mr. WOHKS. Mr. President, the doctors composing boards of health are not content to leave it to the parents of school children to determine whether children shall be examined by doctors and nurses appointed by school boards to detect physical defects or not. They have, in some of the States, procured laws providing for enforced examinations, leaving no choice to the parents, and will do so in every State if they can. What I have said about the methods of the doctors will indicate what such a license would mean. Some of the doctors thus employed are honorable and conscientious men. Some of them, it may safely be said, are not. And most of them are inexperienced and some wholly incompetent It has been said that what a doctor looks for in the way of disease he generally finds. In these school ex- aminations they have found an astonishing number of physical defects that, in tbeir estimation, call for surgical operations. And generally when this is necessary the doctor who discovers the fact gets the job. If he does not, some other doctor does. It adds immensely to the practice and revenues of the profession. It is a great temptation to make business and increase the prac- tice that they say they have lost through " irregular practi- tioners." This effort to get possession of the schools by the doctors, to the exclusion of the parents, has aroused very general indigna- tion and protest. It is regarded as one more unwarranted effort of the doctors to usurp all power in the matter of health regu- lation and the treatment of disease. Compulsory examination is the forerunner of compulsory treatment. This statement of the conditions of ,th}ngs under such a law of compulsory exami- nation in Boston is typical of all of them. Children of the Boston school's, by a new regulation, are made to undergo a physical examination which will necessitate the removal of clothing. A storm of protests from many parents, as well as children, was aroused yesterday when the work of examination of 800 girls of 41917- -109G9 61 the Roxbury High School was nearly completed. Two girls strongly objected to the examination, but finally were persuaded to submit. There was another protest from the residents of West Roxbury when about GO girls were subjected to the examinations at West Roxbury High School yesterday. One girl who objected was sent home to her parents and told to consult the family physician. How her case came out is not known. Although the statute requiring the examination has existed since 190G, the examination has not been rigidly enforced ex- cept in the primary schools, but this year it is to apply to all of the grades. It is over the high-school and normal-school girls between 14 and IS years of age that objections are being made. The board of health and the school committee both support the regulation as neces- sary and essential in maintaining the health of the school children and as a preventive to disease. The heart, lungs, and spine may be ex- amined, and feet when necessary. Mr. President, I can not stop now to enter upon any extended argument on this question. It seems to me to be so obnoxiously subversive of every sense of personal liberty and such an en- croachment on the rights of parents to have control of their children that it needs no discussion. BILL IN VIOLATION OF EIGHTS OF THE STATES. Mr. President, it is a conceded fact that within the States health regulations ara within the power and jurisdiction of the State authorities, and it is an authority that is and should be jealously guarded. Ostensibly this bill purports to confine the activities of the Government in this respect to Federal terri- tory and within Federal jurisdiction. If it does not, it would at once be declared unconstitutional. But one of the prime ob- jects of the bill is to extend this power to every State in the Union, and, if it is passed, the powers granted by it will be used for that very purpose. That is the very thing the doctors are most desirous of bringing about. The bill is very ingen- iously drawn to accomplish this result. It provides : It shall be the duty of the bureau of health to collect and disseminate Information relating to the public health and to enforce the observance of all regulations and laws of the United States relating to the public health. This is as broad and comprehensive as language can well make it. It is attempted or pretended to be modified by a pro- viso to the effect that this shall not authorize the bureau of health to- exercise, or attempt to exercise, without express invitation from the chief executive or other proper authority of Hie State, any function belonging exclusively to such State. Under this clause any board of health of any State composed of the very doctors who are interested in extending the power of this health bureau to the farthest limit may extend this in- vitation. These two interested parties will not be long in ex- tending the activities of this bureau into the States ; and, un- fortunately, if it were left wholly to the executive authority of the State he would, as a rule, leave it to the health authorities and the result would be the earne. The author of the bill was not quite satisfied, however, with this convenient opportunity to invade the States. The director of health is authorized, in his discretion, to appoint an advisory board of not more than seven members, who may, of course, be doctors of the regular school in as many States " to confer w.ith him * * * con- cerning the health of the people," who shall hold office for a term of seven years. 41917 109G9 62 This makes a very close and satisfactory connection between State and Nation, and should be entirely satisfactory to the doctors. But, Mr. President, the bill does not stop there. It gives the director of health power to request the health authorities of all the States to seoid delegates to confer with him or his duly appointed representatives and with eacli other at such time and place as he may designate concerning any par- ticular matter or matters relating to the public health. Not only so, but he is authorized by the provisions of the bill to call a health conference of all the States, and compelled to do so upon the petition of the health authorities of five States and Territories. A more ingenious attempt to evade the Constitution aud en- croach upon the province of the States in one of their most vital and sacred rights has never been attempted. The obvious purpose is to make the head of this bureau the autocratic power that is to control the health activities of the whole country. AH he needs is the assent and cooperation of the doctors at the head of the health boards of the several States, and as that is just what they all want and are striving to obtain by this bill, it may be regarded as done as soon as the bill becomes a law. I commend these considerations to the careful attention of the Senate. RESTRICTIVE LAWS IN VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. Mr. President, I come now to the consideration of a purely legal question presented by the enactment aud enforcement of the restrictive laws that I have endeavored to bring to the at- tention of the Senate, including the bill under consideration, which is a part of the scheme to deprive certain people of this country of the right to heal disease and ameliorate human suffering according to their conscientious convictions; in case of some of them, according to their religious views of right and duty. In the consideration of this question I shall be forced to give attention particularly to the rights of Christian Scientists in this respect, because, whether rightly or wrongly, they believe it to be a sacred religious duty to heal the sick by spiritual means, as they understand the scriptural command to heal the sick, and the mode of healing pointed out by the Master in His teachings and example. This being their attitude, founded upon sincere and earnest conviction, the question at once arises whether a law that de- nies or abridges their right to heal in their own way, or to receive such ministration as they feel to be the proper one, is not a violation of the express provisions of the Constitution of the United States designed to protect the people of the country in the observance of their religious rights. In the settlement of this momentous question we must consider the case of both the one who administers to the sick and the one who seeks and desires this mode of treatment. Is the practitioner of this mode of healing, in which he has supreme faith and confidence, to be denied the right to exercise his right to practice? Again, is the man who has equal trust and confidence in this remedy to be denied his right to resort to it for help? If so, why? 4191710960 Only because some other people do not believe in it. This is the sole foundation for any arid every effort that has been made to prevent or abridge such practice unless we take into account the selfish desire of those practicing other modes of healing to uphold themselves by the prohibition of this mode of healing. Mr. President, this is the whole question. Not whether the Christian Scientist is a conscientious Christian man, honestly and trustfully depending upon Divine power for his healing, but whether some one else, who may represent, for the time being, the power of government in the enactment, construction, and enforcement of the laws, does not agree with him, but does believe with equal honesty and good faith that he is wrong in his beliefs and that the mode of healing upon which he relies is not effective, and that his pretensions are false and un- founded. Why, Mr. President, this very conflict of views on a religious question, that might and really is being used as a ground for persecution as I have clearly shown, brings us within the very spirit and purpose of the Constitution. The great Catholic Church has its creeds and its religious convictions, with which other people of different religious views do not agree, and which some intolerant people would suppress by law if the Constitution and the courts did not stand for freedom of religious thought and observance. So it is with the powerful Protestant religious denominations. But all of these Christian bodies believe in Divine healing. They pray to Almighty God for the healing of their sick, and believe in the efficacy of such prayer. And yet some people be- longing to these religious bodies, I hope not many of them, deny to the Christian Scientist the right to heal by prayer, and de- nounce his pretensions to heal through the power of the same God that they serve and trust as both false and ungodly. There is this difference between the prayer of other Christian people and Christian Scientists : Their prayer is an appeal to God for intervention in the particular case. They attempt to move God to heal the individual. The Christian Scientist be- lieves that God is unchangeable and that He can not be moved by prayer to do or not to do a desired thing, but that He has already and for all time given man all good, which is always there for him when he conforms to His laws and does Ilis bidding. Therefore the Christian Scientist prays not to change- God or to induce Him to act, but to change man, regenerate him, and bring him into harmony with the Divine law that must restore harmony and right conditions in him, which means nec- essarily restoration to natural and harmonious conditions. It is the belief of Christian Scientists that the purpose of prayer and all Christian effort is to regenerate man and bring him into reconciliation and harmony with the Divine Being, and that "ris effort of reconciliation and regeneration by prayer is the true, the only true, means of healing the sick. Jesus of Nazareth was persecuted and finally crucified for preaching the gospel and practicing his religious belief, by healing the sick. To do the same to-day in the twentieth century in the great State of New York, if he were here, would make him a criminal, subject to fine and imprisonment by the laws of that State. Only a ''few days ago a Christian Scientist 41917 109G9 64: was convicted and punished for healing the sick as he believed in the way and by the same power and principle that Jesus healed. Now, Mr. President, who is to determine which of these dif- ferent beliefs sincerely entertained is right and which is wrong. Who is authorized or who will be permitted under our Constitu- tion to declare one of these beliefs and the exercise of it in the healing of the sick a crime? This effort to enact and enforce such laws, I am glad to say, is not being made by the people of other church denominations or by persons entertaining different religious beliefs. I think I have shown that it comes from the doctors whose emoluments are -derived from the effort to heal disease in their way, not for religious but for purely material and selfish reasons. The Constitution of the United States provides, amendments to the Constitution, Article I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This, of course, is a prohibition against action by the Federal Government. Article XIV, section 1, provides : No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or Immunities of citizens of the United States. There can be no higher or more sacred privilege than that of exercising one's religion, and every citizen is entitled to protec- tion from any law that would deny or abridge that right. In Reynolds v. United States (98 U. S., 145, 162), the court said: Congress can not pass a law for the government of the Territories which shall prohibit the free exercise of religion. The first amendment to the Constitution expressly forbids snch legislation. Religious freedom is guaranteed everywhere throughout the United States, so far as con- gressional interference is concerned. But in that case the court distinguished between mere re- ligious opinions and beliefs and overt acts made criminal by the laws of the land. The cotirt, after referring to an early statute of Virginia on the subject, uses this further language : In the preamble of this act (12 Hening's Stat., 84) religions freedom is defined ; and after a recital " that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude Ills powers Snto the field of opinion, and to restrain the pro- fession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerons fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty," it is declared " that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts 'against peace and good order." In those two sentences is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State. The effect of the decision seems to be that religious belief can not be punished ; but when, under the guise of exercising one's religion, an overt act " against peace and good order " is committed the overt act is punishable by the State. This was a case where the defendant was prosecuted for polygamy, and *lie defended on the ground that polygamy was allowed and recognized by his church, I shall snow, I think, to the entire satisfaction of the Senate that the healing of the sick as an act of religious duty can not be regartled as an overt act "against peace and good order," or otherwise in violation of law or public policy. But, looking at it in the light of tlie fourteenth amendment to the Constitu- tion, and treating it as a question of the abridgment of the 41917 109G9 65 privileges of the citizen, the case of American School of Mag- netic Healing v. McAnnulty is interesting and instructive. The case was one where the Postmaster General had excluded from the mails certain printed matter advertising the plaintiff as a magnetic healer. After pointing out that one means of healing was believed in by some and different means by others, and that no one could determine how far one was right and the other was wrong, the court said: Again, there are many persons who do not believe In the homeo- pathic school of medicine, and who think that such doctrine, if prac- ticed precisely upon the lines set forth by its originator, is absolutely inefficacious in the treatment of diseases. Are homeopathic physicians subject to be proceeded against under these statutes and liable at the discretion of the Postmaster General, upon evidence satisfactory to him, to be found guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses and their letters stamped as fraudulent and the money contained therein as payment for their professional services sent back to the writers of the letters? And, turning the question around, can physicians of what is called the "old school" be thus proceeded against? Both of these different schools of medicine have their followers, and many who be- lieve in the one will pronounce the other wholly devoid of merit. But there is no precise standard by which to measure the claims of either, for people do recover who are treated according to the one or the other school. And so it is said, Do people recover who are treated under this mental theory? By reason of it? That can not be averred as matter of fact. Many think they ..do Others are of the contrary opinion. Is the Postmaster General to decide the question under these statutes? The laws under consideration, without exception, place it within the power of a board of health composed of medical practitioners, usually of one school of medicine, to determine who shall practice healing. The question of their right does not depend in the least upon their knowledge of medicine or medical practice, because they make no claim to any such knowledge. Manifestly a medical practitioner can not pass upon their fitness to heal in their way, because he is as ignorant of their way of healing as they are of his. Such laws, there- fore, in practical effect, declare that no one but a medical prac- titioner shall be allowed to practice the art of healing. Whether the act says so or not, that is its effect, and known and in- tended to be so. It is a denial of the right to practice except in one way. All other modes of healing are prohibited, and the right of the citizen to resort to any other is denied. As a result, there can be no advance in knowledge in other modes of healing that is not a violation of law. Mr. President, when a question like this confronts us the people of this country had better look to their liberties. Prof. James, from whose address I have already quoted, opposed one of such bills because it was " a movement in favor of igno- rance." He says, with emphasis, that The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is not a medical body, has no right to a medical opinion, and should not dare to take sides in medical controversies. Truer words were never spoken, and they are just as true of the Federal Government as they are of the State of Massachu- setts. This should be enough to impel the lawmaking power to hold its hand. But if it does not, then the courts must determine whether such a law, affect ing the rights of the citizen in a matter of the highest import, affecting the most sacred of his affairs, can be enacted and enforced under a Constitution like ours under the fundamental law of a Nation of freemen. 41917 103G9- :. C6 The case of State v. Biggs (133 N. C.) Is a most interesting and instructive one on this subject. The defendant was prose- cuted under one of the acts that I have described making it a crime to practice medicine without a license and specifically defining the meaning of the words " practicing medicine." The opinion was delivered by Mr. Justice Clarke, of the supreme court of that State. I take the liberty of quoting portions of the opinion: What Is " the practice of medicine and surgery " Is as wen under- stood, and Its limits, as the practice of dentistry. The courts have also held that of the many schools of " medicine and surgery " the legislature could not prescribe that any one was orthodox and the other heterodox, but that those professing the different systems" allo- pathic," " homeopathic," " Thompsonian," and the like should be ex- amined npon a course such as is taught in the best colleges of that school of practice, but that It is not essential that a member of each or of any special school should be upon the board of examiners. * * * Under the guise of " construction " of those well-under- stood terms the " practice of medicine and surgery " the act essays to provide that the expression " practice of medicine and surgery " shall be construed to mean the management " for fee or reward " of any case of disease, physical or mental, real or imaginary, with or without drugs, surgical operation, surgical or mechanical appliances, or by any other method whatsoever ; that is, the practice of surgery and medicine shall mean practice without surgery or medicine if a fee is charged. If no fee is charged, then the words surgery and medicine " drop hack to their usual and ordinary meaning, as by long usage known and accustomed. Where, then, is the protection to the public if such treatment is valid when done without fee or reward? Yet unless the act confers and is intended solely to confer protection upon the public it is invalid. The legislature can not forbid one man to practice a calling or profession for the benefit or profit of another. * Then It Is forbidden to relieve a case of suffering, " physical or mental," in any method unless one is an M. D. It is not even admissible to " minister to a mind diseased " in any method or even dissipate an attack of the " blues " without that label duly cer- tified. Is not this creating a monopoly, and the worst of monopolies, that diseases shall not be cured or alleviated, whether real or imagi- nary, mental or physical, though without medicine or surgery, " if for a fee," unless one has undergone an examination on " anatomy, physi- ology, surgery, pathology, medical hygiene, chemistry, pharmacy, materia medica, therapeutics, obstetrics, and the practice of medicine " ? * The public have a right to know that those holding them- selves out as members of that ancient and honorable profession are competent and duly licensed as such. The legislature can exert its police power to that end, because it is a profession whose practice re- quires the highest skill and learning. But there are methods of treat- ment which do not require much skill and learning, if any. Patients have a right to use such methods if they wish, and the attempt to re- quire an examination of the character above recited for the application of such treatment is not warranted by any legitimate exercise of the police power. * * * The term " practice of medicine and surgery " embraces probably the larger, and certainly by far the most profitable, part of the " treatment of diseases," but is not coextensive with the latter term, and can not be made so unless " surgery and medicine " are adopted as the State system of treatment, a monopoly, and all other methods are made indict- able. On the other hand, the State Medical Society would hardly wish to broaden out so as to take in all methods of treatment of disease, for this would be to take in practitioners and practices which they would not wish to recognize. All the law so far has done or can do is to require that those practicing on the sick with knife and drugs shall be examined and found competent by those " of like faith and order." Dr. ^JCiver Wendell Holmes, in an address before the Medical So- ciety in Massachusetts, said : " If the whole materia medica was sunk to the bottom of the sea it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the flshes." An eminent medical authority In 41917 10009 67 this State has said that out of 24 serious cases of disease 3 could not he cured by the hest remedies, 3 others might he benefited, and the rest would get well anyway. Stronger statements could he cited from the most eminent medical authorities the world has known. Medicine is an experimental, not an exact, science. All the law can do is to regulate and safeguard the use of powerful and dangerous remedies, like the knife and drugs, hut it can not forbid dispensing with them. When the Master, who was Himself called the Good Physician, was told that other than His followers were casting out devils and curing diseases, He said, " Forbid them not." The case last referred to did not relate to tlie religions side of the question. The defendant made no claim that gave rise to any such question. But the courts of this country have jeal- ously guarded the religious rights and opinions of the people as within the protection of the Constitution. The case of the Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (143 U. S., 457), while not involving a constitutional question, is an interesting one as showing the attitude of the highest court in the country in matters of religion. The plaintiff in the case had, by contract, employed a for- eigner as its minister or rector. The question was whether such a contract was in violation of the statute forbidding the " importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under con- tract or agreement to perform labor in the United States." It was conceded that the case was within the letter of the statute, but it was held not to be within its spirit. The court, looking to the title of the act and the evils evidently intended to be met by it, decided that its object was to " stay the influx of cheap unskilled labor " into this country. In commenting upon this situation Mr. Justice Brewer had this to say on the religious phase of the question : But beyond all these matters no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, State or national, because this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour there is a single . voice making thia affirmation. And, after referring to numerous historical instances showing the reliance of our people upon Divine guidance and support in dealing with grave problems and important events, the learned justice says further : Coming nearer to the present time, the Declaration of Independence recognizes the presence of the Divine in human affairs in these words : " We hold these truths to he self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness." " We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by .authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare," etc. "And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." If we examine the constitutions of the various States we find in them a constant recognition of religious obligations. Every constitu- tion of every one of the 44 States contains language which either directly or by clear implication recognizes a profound reverence for re- ligion and an assumption that its influence in all human affairs is essential to the well-being of the community. This recognition may be in the preamble, such as is found in the constitution of Illinois, 1870: " We, the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political, and religious liberty which He hath so long per- mitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing upon our en- deavors to secure and transmit the same unimpaired to succeeding generations," etc. 4191710909 68 He proceeds at length to quote from the constitutions of the various States, showing their intention to encourage free and unrestrained reliance upon religion in the affairs of men. Tlieu he says: There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning ; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious Nation. These are not individual say- ings, declarations of private persons ; they are organic utterances ; they speak the voice of the entire people. While, because of a general rec- ognition of this truth, the question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph v. The Commonwealth (11 S. & R., 394, 400) it was decided that " Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania ; * * * not Christianity with an established church, and tithes, and spiritual courts, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men." And in The People v. Uuggles (.8 Johns, 290, 294,. 295) Chan- cellor Kent, the great commentator on American law, speaking as chief justice of the Supreme Court of New York, said : " The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the gen- eral doctrines of Christianity as the rule of their faith and practice ; and to scandalize the author of these doctrines is not only, in a reli- gious point of view, extremely impious, but even in respect to the obligations due to society is a gross violation of decency and good order. * * * The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of reli- gious opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject is granted and secured ; but to revile, with mali- cious and blasphemous contempt, the religion professed by almost the whole community is an abuse of that right. Nor are we bound by any expressions in the Constitution, as some have strangely supposed, either not to punish at all or to punish indiscriminately the like at- tacks upon the religion of Mahomet or of the Grand Lama, and for this plain reason, that the case assumes that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors." And in the famous case of Tidal v. Girard's Executors (2 How., 127, 198) this court, while sustaining the will of Mr. Girard, with its provision for the creation of a college into which no minister should be permitted to enter, observed : " It is also said, and truly, that the Christian religion is a part of the common law of Pennsylvania." Mr. Tiedeman, in his work, State and Federal Control of Persons and Property, says : The complete abrogation of all State interference in matters of religion is of slow growth and can only be attained with the growth of public opinion. The one great trouble is that so many sects or churches believe that theirs is the only religion and that every claim of religious belief that conflicts with theirs is un-Christian and no religion at all. It is this spirit and the intolerance that springs from it that stands in the way of every change of religious belief or the establishment of any new or reform movement of a religious character. That is just what the Christian Scientists are com- bating to-day. While they agree with the orthodox churches in all the essentials of the Christian religion, they are denounced as an ungodly people because they go further than the old churches in attempting to obey the whole command: "Preach the gospal and heal the sick." That tbey believe in all the essentials of the Christian re- ligion is fully shown by the tenets of the church, as follows: 1. As adherents of Truth, wo take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life. 2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. Wo acknowledge Ills Son, one Christ ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter ; and man in God's imago and likeness. 3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin an;l the spiritual understanding thaf casts out evil as unreal. But the belief In sin is punished so long as the belief lasts. 4. We acknowledge Jesus's atonement as the evidence of divine, effi- cacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the 41917 10SG9 60 Way-shower ; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love, as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death. 5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and His resurrec- tion served to uplift faith, to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter. 6. And we solemnly promise to watch and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus ; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us ; and to be merciful, just, and pure. Believing, as they do, that the healing of disease is a Christian duty imposed upon them by the command of the Master, a law that forbids it or abridges their right and privilege to heal the sick is a plain violation of both of the constitutional inhibitions above mentioned. Mr. Tiedeman says further on this subject: SEC. C3. Police regulation of religion constitutional restrictions: If there were no provisions in the American Constitution especially appli- cable to the matter of police regulation of religion, the considerations which would deny to the State the control and prevention of vice would also constitute insuperable objections to State interference in matters of religion. But the rivalry and contention of the religious sects not only demanded constitutional prohibition of the interference of the National Government, but gave rise to the incorporation of like prohi- bitions in the various State constitutions. The exact phraseology varies with each constitution, but the practical effect is believed in the main to be the same in all of them. These provisions not only pro- hibit all church establishments, but also guarantee to each individual the right to worship God in his own way, and to give free expression to his religious views. The prohibition of a religious establishment not only prevents the establishment of a distinctively State church, but likewise prohibits all preferential treatment of the sects in the bestowal of State patronage or aid. A law is unconstitutional which gives to one or more religious sects a privilege that is not enjoyed equally by all. " Whatever establishes a distinction against one class or sect is, to the extent to which the distinction operates unfavorably, a persecu- tion, and if based on religious grounds a religious persecution. The ex- tent of the discrimination is not material to the principle, it is enough that it creates an inequality of right or privilege." And the reasons that brought about this constitutional inhibi- tion against interference with religious belief and observance is thus clearly pointed out by the same author : * * * Most of the immigrants to American colonies were refugees from religious oppression, driven to the wilds of America in order to worship the God of the universe according to the dictates of their conscience. The PurilaiiK of New England, the Quakers of Pennsyl- vania, the English Catholics of Maryland, and the Huguenots of the Carolinas sought on this continent that religious liberty which was not to be found in Europe. I should not say " religious liberty," for that is not what they sought. They desired only to be freed from the re- straint of an intolerant and imposing majority. They desired only to settle in a country where the adherents of their peculiar creed could control the affairs of state. Notwithstanding their sad experience in the Old World, when they settled in America they became as intolerant of dissenters from the faith of the majority as their enemies had been toward them. Mr. President, I need not, in a body like this, consume time in discussing fundamental questions affecting the liberty and free- dom of the individual and the necessary restraints imposed upon him because of his association with others, composing civil or governmental organizations. But the claim of right to restrain such liberties for the good of the community or the public has given rise to many problems and has unjustly deprived many of their liberties. The police power, so called, is sometimes neces- sary for the protection of tlie public, but it has quite as fre- quently been made the engine of oppression to the destruction, without just cause, of the most sacred rights of the individuj\l 41917 10909 70 citizen. Generally the courts stand in the way of the unlawful use of this power, but the extent to which it has been enforced by the courts at times has been most alarming. There is no case, perhaps, in which an unlawful and oppressive nse of this great power has occurred to a greater extent than In the cases I am now considering. The doctors assume, and are able to make lawmakers believe, that the effort to heal disease in any way but theirs is against public policy and should, as a police regulation, be suppressed by law. That is the ground upon which all of the restrictive laws that I have been discuss- ing are attempted to be sustained. Unfortunately such laws are neither enacted nor construed by the courts from knowledge or upon evidence proving the ineffi- cacy of the mode of healing sought to be prevented. More unfortunately still, in the minds of many the question resolves itself into a religious one that in the intolerant religious mind is controlled neither by reason nor justice. With such, if a thousand respectable and reliable people should testify to their healing through such means they would not be credited as against one competent medical practitioner who should say that disease could not be cured that way, or the word of one theologian who should insist that the attempt to heal in any such way is un-Christian and ungodly. I hope the Senate of the United States win be actuated by a higher and broader sense of the rights and liberties of the citi- zen and judge the question by the rules of right, justice, and reason. Judge Cooley, In his admirable work on Constitutional Limi- tations, thus defines the police power of a State : The police of a State, fn a comprehensive sense, embraces Its whole system of Internal regulation, by which the State ceeks not only to pre- servo the public order and to prevent offenses against the State, but also to establish for the Intercourse of citizens with citizens those rules of good manners and good neighborhood which are calculated to prevent a conflict of rights, and to insure to each the uninterrupted enjoyment of hia own so far as la reasonably consistent with a like enjoyment of right* by others. Of course the exercise of this power usually arises in respect of the use of property. But it does present itself upon the ques- tion of religious liberty. In speaking of the constitutional inhi- bition against laws affecting religious beliefs and observance, Judge Cooley Bays further: Those things which are not lawful nnder any of the American con- stitutions may be stated thus : i. Any law respecting an establishment of religion. The legislatures have not been left at liberty to effect a onion of church and state, or to establish preferences by law in favor of any one religious persuasion or mode of worship. There is not complete religious liberty where any one sect is favored by the State and given an advantage by law over other sects. Whatever establishes a distinction against one class or sect Is, to the extent to which the distinction operates unfavorably, a persecution ; and if based on religious grounds, a religious persecution. The extent of the discrimination is not material to the principle ; it is enough that it creates an inequality of right or privilege. * * * 4. Restraints upon the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of the conscience. No external authority Is to place itself between the finite being and the infinite when the former is seeking to render the homage that is due, and in a mode which commends itself to his con- science and judgment as being suitable for him to render, and acceptable to its object. 41917 109GO 71 5. Restraints upon the expression cf religion? belief. An earnest be- liever usually regards it as his duty to propagate his opinions, and to brin}: others to his views. To deprive him of this right is to take from him the power to perform what he considers a most sacred obligation. Mr. Freund, in bis work on Police Power, in speaking under ft subhead entitled " Restraint of religious activity in behalf of i Le public welfare," has this to say : There are two kinds of legislation that would fall under this head measures for the repression of practices deemed disorderly or danger- ous and the regulation of religious societies, chiefly with reference to their property rights. This legislation will also be considered sepa- rately. The essence and value of the constitutional guaranty lies In two points : First, that religious belief as such and its peaceful and orderly manifestation in worship and precept may not be treated as a menace TO (he peace and welfare of the community or as a possible cause of disorder ; and, second, that whatever restraint is placed upon religious activity, through rules of property or otherwise, must be applied to all denominations alike in order to avoid the preference and discrimination which the constitutions forbid. Mr. President, it will be found that the police power can not be invoked to restrain religious belief or action except where the acts committed in the name of religion are in some way a menace to the peace and welfare of the community or, as is said in Reynolds v. United States, already referred to, "against peace and good order." In Ex parte Jentzsch (112 Cal., 468), the Supreme Court of California, in passing upon a law of that State closing barber shops on Sunday, has this to say : Upon the question thus presented of the proper limits of the police power, much might be written, and much, indeed, will have to he written, ere just bounds arc sot to its exercise; but, in this case, neither time permits nor necessity demands the consideration. Still, it may be suggested, in passing, that our Government was not de- signed to ho paternal in form. ~~ We are a self-governing people, and cur just pride is that our laws arc made by us as well as for us. 10 very individual citizen is to be allowed so much liberty as may exist without Impairment of the equal rights of his fellows. Our institu- tions are founded upon the conviction that we are not only capable of self-government as a community but, what is the logical necessity, that we are capable to a great extent of individual self-government. If this convictiDii shall prove ill founded we have built our house upon fjiiid. The spirit of a system such as curs is therefore at total variance with that which, more or less veiled, still shows in the paternalism of other nations. It may be injurious to health to eat bread before it is 12 i hours old, yet it would strike us, with surprise to see the legis- lature making a crime of the sale of fresh bread. We look with dis- favor upon such legislation as we do upon the enactment of sumptuary laws. We do not even punish a man for his vices unless they be practiced openly, so as to lead to the spread of corruption or to breaches of the peace or to public scandal. In brief, we give to the individual the utmost possible amount of personal liberty, and, with that guaranteed him, lie is treated as a person of responsible judg- ment, not as a child in his nonage, and is left free to work out his as impulse, education 1 , training, heredity, and environment direct him. So. while the police power is one whose proper use makes most potently for good, in its undefined scope and inordinate exercise lurks no small danger to the Republic, for the difficulty which is experienced in defining its just limits and bounds affords a temptation to the legis- lature to encroach upon the rights of citizens with experimental laws, none the less dangerous because well meant. There are cases in which the true distinction is clearly made between the proper exercise of religious duties, according to OIM-'S conscience, and the commission of unlawful acts under the guise of religious beliefs. It must be conceded that no one school should be allowed to commit a crime or any act against peace, 41917 109G9 72 good order, or morals, and then justify himself under the claim that the act was in accordance with his religious beliefs. This distinction is clearly drawn in Davis v. Beason (133 TT. S., 333, 342), where the Supreme Court of the United States, through Mr. Justice Field, made this clear and convincing state- ment of the rule on the subject : The term " religion " has reference to one's views of his relations to his Creator, and to the obligations they impose of reverence for his being and character, and of obedience to His will. It is often con- founded with the cultus, or form of worship of a particular sect, but Is distinguishable from the latter. The first amendment to the Constitu- tion, in declaring that Congress shall make no law respecting the estab- lishment of religion, or forbidding the free exercise thereof, was in- tended to allow everyone under the Jurisdiction of the United States to entertain such notions- respecting his relations to his Maker and the duties they impose as may be approved by his judgment and conscience. and to exhibit his sentiments in such form of worship as he may think proper, net injurious to the equal rights of others, and to prohibit legislation for the support of any religious tenets, or the modes of wor- ship of any sect. The oppressive measures adopted and the cruelties and punishments inflicted by the Governments of Europe for many ages to compel parties to conform, in their religious beliefs and modes of worship, to the views of the most numerous sect and the folly of at- tempting in that way to control the mental operations of persons and enforce an outward conformity to a prescribed standard led to the adoption of the amendment in question. It was never Intended or supposed that the amendment could be in- yo_ked as a protection against legislation for the punishment of acts inimical to the peace, good order, and morals of society. With man's relations to his Maker and the obligations he may think they impose, and the manner in which an expression shall be made by him of his belief on those subjects, no interference can be permitted, provided always the laws of society, designed to secure its peace and prosperity and the morals of its people, are not interfered with. However free the exercise of religion may be, it must be subordinate to the criminal laws of the country, passed with reference to actions regarded by general consent as properly the subjects of punitive legislation. There have beer, sects which denied as a part of their religious tenets that there should be any marriage tie, and advocated promiscuous intercourse of the sexes as prompted by the passions of its members. And history dis- closes the fact that the necessity of human sacrifices, on special occa- sions, has been a tenet of many sects. Should a sect of either of these kinds ever find its way into this country, swift punishment would follow the carrying into effect of its doctrines, and no heed would be given to the pretense that, as religious beliefs, their supporters could be pro- tected in their exercise by the Constitution of the United States. Prob- ably never before in the history of this country has it been seriously contended that the whole punitive power of the Government for acts, recognized by the general consent of the Christian world in modern times as proper matters for prohibitory legislation, must be suspended in order that the tenets of a religious sect encouraging crime may be carried out without hindrance. In construing the restrictive laws of State legislatures the State courts have sometimes held that they should not be con- strued as prohibiting the practice of healing by other than medical practitioners, because the intention to legislate against the liberties of the citizen should not be assumed. In the case of Nelson v. State Board of Health (22 Ky., Law Rep., 438) the attempt was made to prevent an osteopath from practicing his profession in that State because he had not procured a license to practice from the board of health. The court held that the osteopath was not within the terms of the statute, because he was not practicing medicine, and said: If the net applied to appellant, he can in no case practice his system in this State, for, however well qualified he may be, he can not be ex- amined for license as a physician, and he could not, without abandon- ing his practice as an osteopath, obtain a diploma from a medical 4191710909 73 college. If the statute applies to him, it also applies to trained nurses and all others of that class who for compensation administer to the wants of the sick. The result of such a construction of the statute would be to compel everyone, whether willing or unwilling, to employ a registered physician to care for him when he is sick, or to trust himself entirely to gratuitous services, however much he might prefer skillful nursing to medical treatment. It is doubtful if the legislature has tha right under the Constitution thus to restrict the free choice of the citizen in a matter concerning only himself and not the people at large. Taking the statute as a whole, we do not think that this was within the legislative intent, or that the act was designed to do more than, regulate the practice of medicine by physicians and surgeons. The case of State v. Mylod (20 11. I., 632) is to the same effect. In that case it was said : It follows therefore that the acts complained of are excluded from the operation of said Cap. 165 unless the words " practice of medi- cine," taken in their ordinary or popular meaning, includes them, or unless it appears from said chapter that the legislative intent was to give to said words a meaning broader and more inclusive than the popular one. Medicine, in the popular sense, is a remedial substance. The practice of medicine, as ordinarily or popularly understood, has relation to the art of preventing, curing, or alleviating disease or pain. It rests largely in the sciences of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene ; it requires a knowledge of disease, its origin, its anatomical and physiological fea- tures, and its causative relations ; and, further, it requires a knowledge of drugs, their preparation and action. Popularly it consists in the discovery of the cause and nature of disease and the administration of remedies or the prescribing of treatment therefor. Prayer for those suffering from disease, or words of encouragement or the teaching that disease will disappear and physical perfection be attained as a result of prayer or that humanity will be brought into harmony with God by right thinking and a fixed determination to look on the bright side of life, does not constitute the practice of medicine in the popular sense. ******* * * * While it true that the study and treatment of mental dis- ease constitute one of the departments or branches of medicine in which the influence of the mind over the body is recognized, yet mere words of encouragement, prayer for divine assistance, or the teaching of Christian Science as testified, in the opinion of the couvt, does not constitute the practice of medicine in either of its branches in the statutory or popular sense. To give to the words " practice of medicine " the construction claimed for them by the State, in the opinion of the court, would lead to un- intended results. The testimony shows that Christian Scientists are a recognized sect or school. They hold common beliefs, accept the same teachings, recognize as true the same theories and principles. If the practice of Christian Science is the practice of medicine, Christian Science is a school or system of medicine, and is entitled to recognition l>y the State hoard of health to the same extent as other schools or systems of medicine. Under said Cap. 165 it can not be discrimi- nated against, and its members are entitled to certificates to practice medicine provided they possess the statutory qualifications. The stat- ute, in conferring upon the State board of health authority to pas* upon the qualification of applicants for such certificates, does not confer upon said board arbitrary power. The board can not determine which school or system of medicine in its theories and the practices is right ; it can only determine whether the applicant possesses the statutory qualification to practice in accordance with the re-cognized theories of a particular school or system. It would be absurd to hold that under sni'l Cap. 1C5, which pro- vides against discrimination, the requirements necessary to entitle an applicant to a certificate were such that the members of a particular school or system could not comply with them, thus adopting a con- struction which would operate not as a discrimination only, hut as a prohibition. On the other hand, to hold that a person who does not know or pretend to know anything about disease, or about the met IKK! of ascertaining the presence or the nature of disease, or about the nature, preparation, or use of drugs or remedies, and who never ad- ministers them, may ohtni'i a certificate to practice medjclne, is to hold that the operation of the statute is to defeat the beneficial purposes for which it wj.s enacted. 41917- 1G9G9 74 The case of State v. McKnight (131 N. C.) was another action affecting the right of an osteopathic practitioner to prac- tice without a license. The court in that case used this lan- guage : The State has not restricted the cure of the body to the practice of medicine and surgery " allopathy," as it is termed nor required that before anyone can be treated for any bodily ill the physician must have acquired a competent knowledge of allopathy and be licensed by those skilled therein. To do that would be to limit progress by estab- lishing allopathy as the State system of healing and forbidding all others. This would be as foreign to our system as a State church for the cure of souls. All the State has done has been to enact that when one wishes to practice " medicine or surgery " he must, as a protec- tion to the public not to the doctors be examined and licensed by those skilled in " surgery and medicine." To restrict all healing to that one kind to allopathy excluding homeopathy, osteopathy, and all other treatments, might be a protection to doctors in " surgery and medicine," but that is not the object of the act, and might make it unconstitutional, because creating a monopoly. The State can only regulate for the protection of the public. There Is also " divine science " (which some one has said is neither divine nor a science), and there may be other methods still. Whether these shall be licensed and regulated is a matter for the lawmaking power to determine before any question in that respect can come before the court. Certainly a statute requiring examination and license " before beginning the practice of medicine or surgery " neither regulates nor forbids any mode of treatment which absolutely excludes medicines and surgery from its pathology. Mr. President, this confirms what I have already said that where the statute provides in terms for the regulation of the practice of medicine and surgery schools of practitioners who do not resort to the use of drugs or the knife are not affected and therefore not interested in its enforcement. But the trouble is that in many of these laws the definition of " practicing medi- cine " includes all kinds of healing or treatment, thus avoiding Ihe effect of the decided cases on the subject. So in such cases the question becomes one of the constitutionality of the law. No one should question the constitutional right of tha States to regulate the " practice of medicine and surgery." Certainly I do not. Anyone who practices the use of drugs or the knife .should establish his competency in that respect. The legislature of a State would undoubtedly have the right, also, to regulate the practice of Christian Science by providing for the establish- ment of a board of examiners to determine their fitness and com- petency to practice that mode of healing. But the board should, of course, have knowledge of the qualifications necessary for such practice. Christian Scientists would welcome such a law, as they desire that only persons competent and conscientious should practice their mode of healing. What they and different schools of medi- cine object to is that they shall be examined as to their com- petency to practice a means of healing in which they do not believe and in which they do not claim to be efficient or com- petent. The result of such a law is to compel an examination as to their competency to practice a system of healing, not with any view of determining their fitness to practice what they make claim to practice. That means simple prohibition just as effectually as if the statute provided in terms that a Christian Scientist shall not practice healing or the amelioration of suffering. This dis- tinction was recognized in the State v. Wilcox (04 Kans., 789), 41917 109C9 75 In which the court, having held that the State had the power to regulate the practice of medicine, said further : The act Is not invalid because it provides that " Nothing in this act shall be construed as interfering with any religious beliefs in the treat- ment of diseases, providing that quarantine regulations relating to con- tagious diseases are not infringed upon." (Sec. G, Gen. Stat., 1901, par. GG74.) The express exclusion of the element of religious belief in the application of the law was hardly necessary. Religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution, and without mention in the statute would have been implied, and we can see nothing in this provision which makes an illegal discrimination against or in favor of any class of physicians. This language is significant. It expressly recognizes the fact that religious freedom exercised in the way of healing can not be abridged under the Constitution. Mr, President, the question of both the constitutionality and Justice of some of the bills enacted by State legislation intended to restrict or prohibit the practice of healing by Christian Sci- entists have been commented upon by the governors of some of the States in veto messages. Thus Gov. Mickey, of Nebraska, has this to say in one of his veto messages : The constitution of the State of Nebraska declares that "all persona have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God accord- Ing to the dictates of their own consciences," and further adds, " nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted." IB the Christian Science religion the idea of worship and of divine healing are so intermingled that it is impossible to draw the line of demarcation, and hence interference with the one or the other is, an interference with " the rights of conscience " and. thus becomes an infringement of th constitutional guaranty of religious freedom. And GOT. Peabody, of Colorado, used this language in a mes- sage vetoing such a bill : Guided by the late experience of similar legislation In other States, the conclusion is irresistible that all such legislation has a tendency to restrict the citizen in the employment of whomsoever he pleases in th treatment of his diseases, and it also has a tendency to build up, under the protection of the State, a trust or combination 9f certain schools ol medicine to the exclusion of all others equally meritorious. Gov. Thomas, of the same State, in a like case, used this clear and emphatic language: The department of surgery excepted, medicine Is not a science. It In a. series of experiments, more or less successful, and will become a science when the laws of health and disease are fully ascertained and understood. This can be done, not by arresting the progress of experi- ment and binding men down to hard and fast rules of treatment, but by giving free rein to the man who departs from the beaten highway and discovers hidden methods and remedies by the wayside. * * The true intent and purpose of the bill is to restrict the profession of medicine to the three schools therein mentioned, and then limit the number of practitioners to suit the judgment of the composite board. People desiring medical or surgical service may employ its licentiates or die without the consolation of the healer. This is but to say that a medical trust is to be established which shall regulate demand and supply by absolute control of the product which forms its basis, the general assembly furnishing the appliances whereby the trust shall beeorue effectual. The integrity and usefulness of every profession must be guaranteed to society, which may establish standards for the members thereof and for the observance of which its sanction should be given. Beyond this, each profession takes care of itself, and legislative interference is tyranny, open or disguised. * * * The fundamental vice of the bill is that it denies absolutely to the individual the right to select his own physician. This is a right of conscience, and as sacred as that which enables the citizen to worship God as he may desire. It is, indeed, the same right manifesting itself in a parallel direction. It is a part of the law of this land, and no 4191710909 76 civil power is strong enough to deprive the citizen of its exercise. He may, indeed, select a healer of d9ubtful reputation or conceded incom- petence, but that is bis affair just as much as is his choice of a minister or attorney. His action may prove injurious, possibly fatal, to himself or to some members of his family. It is better so 'than to delegate to any tribunal the power to say " thou shalt not employ this man " or " thou shalt employ this one." That this bill produces such u result indirectly makes it the more objectionable. It is not the out- spoken and aggressive assault upon individual liberty that men should fear, but the indirect or resultant blow that is masked and falls unex- pectedly. The bill, like all kindred forms of paternalism, assumes that the citizen can not take care of himself. The State must lead him as a. little child, lest he fall into trouble unawares. He must be guarded and chided, limited here and licensed there, for bis own protection. Such a system, born of the union of church and state, crumbles into ashes in the crucible of experience. It can not flourish, though dis- guised in the garments of an alleged public necessity. The privilege of choosing one's own physician is a positive essential to the public health. Yet this bill assumes to thrust the coarse machinery of the criminal law Into one of the most sacred relations of human life, to drag the chosen physician, if unlicensed, from the sick couch to the prison cell, and to substitute for him some one who, however exalted and honorable, may not command the confidence or secure the sympathy of his patient. These comments are not extreme, for it must be remembered that those who bolicve in and patronize the various arts of healing that are ostracized by this bill form a very large part of every community, nor are they confined to the ignorant and superstitious portions of society. They number in their ranks thousands of the most refined, intelligent, and conscientious people. They recognize in many modern forms of relief to the suffering a religious or spiritual element that appeals to their best and tenderest sympathies. The benefits they claim and the cures they narrate are not imaginary. Shall the Government enact by statute that these people shall not longer enjoy their benefits or put them into daily practice? Shall it officially declare these people to be criminally wrong and the three schools legally right? By what authority docs it so declare? A distinguished physician of Massachusetts has recently declared with force that " the Commonwealth has no right to a medical opinion and should not dare to take sides in a medical controversy." It would be as consistent to take sides in a theological or philosophical discus- sion. The one would he condemned by all men ; the other is equally foreign to the province of government. It may regulate but can not prohibit the calling of the citizens ; it may prevent the commission of wrongs but can not deprive the individual of the right to choose his own advise rs. Mr. President, I am about to conclude what I have to say. I have taken up, too much of the time of the Senate. But I could not remain silent when the liberties of the people and the con- stitutional rights of the States are threatened. There has been no legislation more dangerous or pernicious than the entire sys- tem of laws, State and National, that are being forced upon the people of this country by the political doctors, who are consider- ing only their own selfish interests without regard to the public welfare. I have considered not only the bill now before the Senate but legislation in the States, because they are a part of one general effort to procure legislation that will establish for- ever one school of medicine to the exclusion of all others. If this effort is successful it will create the worst, the most Intolerant, and the most dangerous monopoly and trust the country has 'ever known. It will be the more intolerant and offensive, as well as more powerful, because it is a trust created by law and supported by all the powers of the Government. The author of the bill has graciously consented to amend it so as to provide hat there shall be no discrimination in favor of or against any school of medicine. He could very well do this. It is a perfectly harmless and useless provision and will pro- tect no one. Does anyone suppose that this bureau, made inde- 4191710969 77 pendent by this bill, with an allopathic doctor at its head, and without doubt a member of the American Medical Association, will give any consideration to any mode of healing that does 110 1 use drugs, or not discriminate against them, and in favor of the regular school of medicine? Can anyone think so when we look back over the past few years and see how these very same doctors of the regular school have been using every possible means to procure such laws as will not only discrim- inate against but actually exterminate thorn? Now, it is pro- posed to take the medical bureaus and others in any way con- rnvted with the preservation of the public health out of the departments and bring them under one control, independent and autocratic. What may be expected to happen? Why, with this unlimited power in his hands, with the right to make rules and regulations for the government of his department, he will do, by his rules and regulations, just what he and his fellow doctors have for years been trying to get the States to do by law, declare the practice of Christian Science and other modes of healing that they have condemned as a menace to the public health and suppress such practice. You say he is not allowed to discriminate or to interfere with the practice of medicine ! Why, Mr. President, if he is honest, and has been honest in promoting restrictive and prohibitive legislation in the States against such practices, he will say: " I must protect the public health. That is the prime duty imposed upon me by this law. To do it I must destroy the tendency to put away drugs and resort to quacks and charlatans. They are not entitled to pro- tection. I will do my duty and suppress them in every way possible." If anyone supposes that ways will not be found to accomplish this result, with a doctor in control and at the head of a bureau that is independent of control by any higher power, he does not appreciate the capacity of the regular school of medicine to maintain itself by the destruction of other means of healing. Mr. President, as I have said, this whole movement is by and in the interest of doctors of the regular school. No one else is demanding this law. They have manipulated political con- ventions and procured a plank in the platform of both of the great political parties, declaring in favor of establishing a de- partment of health, with its head a member of the Cabinet. They have besieged the White House and pleaded for assistance from the President. They have infested the Halls of Congress for years past in the effort to secure the passage of laws that would place them in power and give them absolute control of the medical activities of the Government. In pressing forward this bold scheme they have tried to deceive the public, and have largely succeeded, by claiming that such legislation is in the public interest. They insist that their mode of healing is the only safe or reliable one, and that to resort to any other is to endanger the public health. Their efforts have of late been directed chiefly against Chris- tian Scientists and their mode of practice. They insist that the practice of their mode of healing is a fraud on the people and a menace to the public health. Why, Mr. President, I could by a mere call fill this Capitol Building with conscientious and re- liable men and women, people of high character and UL-ques- 41917 109G9 78 tioned sincerity, who would bear witness to their healing bj this means and their faith in its efficacy. Thousands of these many of them within my own personal knowledge, have been healed of what the doctors call incurable diseases, and many of them after the doctors had given up their cases as !]> Naturally these people protest against any law 'that will de- prive them, or anyone else, of the right to resort to this remedy for their relief. In the name of these people, in the name of those believing in other modes of healing, in the name of a liberty-loving people, I protest against any law or regulat'.on that will deny them the right or abridge their liberty to give or accept relief of their choice, or their religious rights. 41917101)09 o THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES This i 00 s t date stamped below. ! University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.