Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1886-01-01
The Medical Act;
Or the Doctors Monopoly,

EDITOR OTANDAhD.
-Four years ago the present medi-
zeal act was enacted. 1t was quietly
done at the close Of the session. so
that but few were aware of it, and
consequently no protest from the
people was made. Such acts in the
interest of the medical profession
are never called for by the people.
Experience demonstrates that they
are not needed. Our present law
provides that all persons who did
not register as practicing physicians
before certain date, or who cannot
show diploma from some medical
college, etc., shall be prohibited
from rractieins tho bealing art in
Washington Territory. 1t matters
not that better modes of healing than
were hitherto furnished by regular
practitioners are now to be had, and
that thousands of our most iutelii
gent people never employ the old
school doctors, still, laws must b,
enacted 10 deprive us of our choice
of physicians, and exclude from the
Territory those who are far moro
successful in the healing art than
the regulars have ever been. The
world is coming to know that doctors
are born, not made; that the requi
site skill and healing force for the
eradication of disease is, in some
mysterious way, inherited and is not
by any means to be acquired in
medical colleges alone. The ancient
gift of healing practiced in all past
ages, and by all nations, the trans
mission of healthy life-force by
means of laying on of hands, bv
magnetism. or any other mode, is
by the existing law absolutely pro.
hibited unless performed by a regis
tered or resulsr physician. Have
the people no right to employ who
ever they chose to heal them when
sick? Must they submit to a mo-
hopoly of doctors, to privileged
class, in free county, too? If so,
all right; let US also have law reg.
ulating the ministrations of the
priesthood in the healing of souls
as we'll as of the body. In short, 10,
us so back to the good old times of
church and state, and make tho
clergy privileged class as formerly.
II may be said that other States
have their medical laws. Some of
them have, but in quite a number
they have been repealed. In Cali
fornia the courts declared the act
unconstitutional on the ground that
it created privileged class. In
Massachusetts, persistent efforts
have been, and are still made, to
saddle the doctors monopoly upon
the backs of the people, bnt so fa-
without success. Many cases Of dis
ease were brought to the notice OF
the legislature showing that after
long and fruitless trial of the regular
medical treatment, permanent cures
had afterwards been effected by
modes that were entirely disconnect-
ed with any of the schools of medi-
cine, and by and through persons
with no medical education whatever.
In New York the act was carried
through the legislature by some
means, but united effort is now be-
ing made to repeal it. AS already
stated, experience shows that no
such laws are needed among intelli-
gent people who are fully compe-
tent to decide on the best mode of
healing that may appear from time
to time. The practice of the regu-
lars is now almost totally different
from what it was so years ago. The
writer has q distinct recollection of
the time when bleeding and calomel
was the remedy for nearly every
complaint. Now the lancet is dis
carded. But let us hear what the
President of the Indiana State Med
ical Society, DR.. J. H. Woodburn,
one of the regular old school, has to
say about it:
" Formerly the practice of medicine
was sort OF antagonistic invasion OF the
body by drugs, or otherwise expelling
the disease With this object in view,
We resorted to blood-letting, vomiting,
purging, and blistcring the body sup