Several unsuccessful attempts to secure legislation O adverse to Christian Scientists have been made in the different State legislatures within the past few months, and it is worth noting that as a rule the proposed bills have not secured the approval of the committees to which they were referred. This was the case in both Massachusetts and New York. In the former a largely attended public hearing was given, and in the latter the proposed bill peacefully slumbered in the committee until the adjournment of the legislature.
It must be more and more apparent to legislators that the people are not calling for such restrictive legislation, and that the animus of these attempts at the curtailment of personal liberty is largely to be found in the personal interest or prejudice of those who regard themselves as being in possession of certain vested rights, and we believe it is because of this recognition of what is behind these bills that they receive less attention than formerly.
If it were possible to say that the physicians who desire such legislation are practising an exact science, or that their treatment of the sick is of unfailing benefit, there would be no need of legislation to compel every one to employ a physician in time of need; but this is not possible, and the statements made by some of the most eminent men in the profession are but a frank recognition of the futility of present-day medical practice. As an example we quote the words of the venerable Professor Alexander Stephens, M.D., of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, who said in a recent lecture to his medical class: "The older physicians grow the more skeptical they become of the virtues of medicine and the more they are disposed to trust to the powers of nature. Notwithstanding all our boasted improvements, patients suffer as much as they did forty years ago. The reason medicine has advanced so slowly is because physicians have studied the writings of their predecessors instead of nature."
