Chicago, April 23.
Editor of the Herald:— There have been intimations not a few in the press of the country, notably in the Northwestern Christian Advocate, that the legal authorities should interfere and prohibit Christian Scientists from persisting in their treatment of the sick until death.
A Mrs. Nichols, of this city, died some time ago under Christian Science treatment. Her friends implored her, so the story goes, to accept medical aid. But she declined all help except that of her Christian Science doctor and died, upon which her doctor was arrested and bound over to the grand jury, and the editor of the Northwestern says "the issue should be pushed to the limits of the law." Will those who are so sensitive to the rights of the sick that they would deny them the right to choose their own doctors inform us whom they should be compelled to choose? It is not quite certain that, if they should have been allowed to select the doctor, Mrs. Nichols would have recovered. Medical science is not an exact science, and no treatment will insure a cure. No school of medicine has, because of its merits, the "right of way" in the community. The "regulars" discredit all others on general principles. The "eclectics" are divided and denounce each other and all others. The "mind" and "faith" curists, "psychopathists," "mesmerists," and "spiritualists" are of many kinds and colors, and mutually distrust and reject each other. The "big-pill" doctors ridicule little pills and "high potencies." The "little-pill" doctors charge back "more harm than good"; positive injury, poison, death, upon the "quantum sufficits." What can a grand jury do? On any grand jury you will probably find several schools of medicine represented. Will the editor who says "the issue in the case given should be pushed to the limits of the law" suggest what kind of a doctor Mrs. Nichols should have called? There is no class of doctors that cure all their patients. One says calomel will cure; another says it will kill. The same is said of other drugs. Which doctor shall be arrested and bound over? It is a question of "bread pills" and water against the whole materia medica. Would it not be well to remember that this is a free country; that the right of private opinion and judgment in matters compromising the equal rights of others is sacred and beyond the jurisdiction of juries and judges?— Chicago Herald.
