Massachusetts physicians are engaged in a war upon the Christian Scientists. This is not strange. Indeed, it would be strange if it were otherwise. The allopathic physicians are at war with everybody and everything that can do less, as much, or more good than they to comfort and heal suffering humanity. They want every person jailed who administers to the sick, unless such person has a diploma from an allopathic medical school, and a certificate from an allopathic State board of health, regardless of competency.—Exchange
Equally illiberal and preposterous was the attempt made by Assemblyman Sheehan to amend the Penal Code of New York relating to the practice of medicine and surgery, by making it a misdemeanor for "a person not authorized by law to practice medicine and surgery who attempts to cure or heal disease in any manner, either with or without the administering of medicine." This attempt to put upon our statute book a most vicious law—which had it been in vogue eighteen hundred years ago would have compelled Jesus Christ to pay a fine of $200 and go to prison for thirty days—was very properly checked by the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly, which reported the bill adversely. There are instances innumerable of people having been cured and healed without administering medicines (which in the hands of skilled practitioners kill as many people as they cure), and it would not be in accordance with the progress of the age to attempt to create by law a monopoly in the medical or any other profession.
