The Green Forest tribune., 1911-12-22
A FEDERAL HEALTH BOARD.

for the creation of a federal health board will not be allowed to pass with out protest. Reports of organized risistance come from all parts of the country, and it may be that the oppo- sition will soon be sufficiently solidi- fled to defeat project that promises infinite mischief for the community, and suffering and injustice for the in- dividual.
 The proposal is based upon those specious claims that are notoriously hard to controvert. If a federal health board were to confine its activities to the promulgation of salutary advice upon hygienic matters, to the abate- ment of quackery, and to the purity of drugs, it might be possible to say much in its favor although it would still be difficult to say that such an organization is needed. But we know that it will attempt to do far more than this, seeing that it's adherents have loudly proclaimed their inten- tions. Indeed, there is no secrecy about them. It Is confidently expected that the board will consist of advo- cates of one school of medicine only and that the methods of that school will be not only recommended, but enforced upon the nation. Indeed a board that was in any way representa- tive of the medical profession as a whole would be stultified by its own disagreements. Outside the domain of simple hygiene, for which we need no federal board at all, there is no single point of medical practice upon which allopaths, homeopaths, eclectics and osteopaths could be in unison. Any board that could be devised by the wit of man must be composed of representatives of one school only, and this means that all other schools are branded as of an inferior caste, even though nothing worse happened to them. And something worse would happen to them. If we are to establish school of medicine, if we are to as sert that the government of the Unit ed States favors one variety of prac- tice more than others, why not estab- fish also a sect of religion and be- stow special authorities upon Bap- lists, Methodists and Episcopalians? :? An established school of religious conjecture seems somewhat less ob- jectionable than an established sect of pseudo-scientific conjecture.
 Those who suppose that a federal board of health would have no concern xryith ir,,I, .,.rI,t fo find themselves undeceiyed It is for the purpose of interfering with indi- vidual rights that the proposal has been made. We need no special knowledge of conditions to be aware that what may be called unorthodox methods of healing have made sad in roads into the orthodox Homeopathy claims a vast number of adherents who are just as well educated and just as intelligent as those who adhere to the older school. Osteopathy, eclecti- cism, and half a dozen other methods of practice are certainly not losing ground. Beyond them is the vast and increasing army of those who may be chased under the general and vague name of mental healers. Those who are addicted to any of these forms of unorthodoxy need have no doubt as to the purposes of the federal health board, Those purposes are to make it difficult for them to follow their particular fads and fancies, to lead them, and if necessary to drive them from medical unorthodoxy to medical orthodoxy
 Now the Argonaut holds no brief for any of the eXcesses and the super stitions connected with the care of the body iE which this age is so rife. But it does feel concerned for the p.eser- vation of human liberty and for the rights of the individual to doctor him. self in any way he pleases so long as he does not indubitably threaten the health of the community. He may take large doses or small ones, or no doses at all; he may be massaged, anointed with oil or prayed over, just as the whim of the moment may dic- tate, and probably it makes no par ticle of difference which he does. But he has the right to choose, just as he chooses the color of his necktie or the character of his underclothing. It is not a matter in which any wise gov ernment will seek to interfere. This is precisely the liberty that the health board intends to take from him. Orthodox medicine, conscious of it's losses, is trying to buttress itself by federal statute, to exalt allopathy to the status of a privileged caste, and to create an established school of medicine just as some other countries have allowed themselves to create an established school of religion. It is for the common sense of the commu- nity to rebuke that effort and to re- pei an unwarranted invasion upon ele- mentary human rights.-Sdn Frdn- cisco Argondut.