Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1912-06-21
The Medical Trust.

ISOLATION has been endeavoring to secure the pas
sage of a measure in congress which would place
the practice of healing disease solely in the power
Of that association. To accomplish this end it has
been urged that new cabinet Office should be
created, to be styled the National Bureau of
Health" which should have absolute supervision
over questions of health. The American Med
ical Association is composed of what its members
themselves are please to term regular practi
TONERS. For many years this association, through
its national and local organizations, has been
seeking to have enacted such laws as will give it
a grasp on the public from which none can escape.
While maintaining that the purposes and aims
of the association" are to secure better health
laws and prevent the spread of disease, the real
motive is to secure monopoly on the people that
will enable it to compel the sick to accept no as
sistance but that furnished by the regular doc
tors
In own state. at the last session of the
Legislature, political lobbyists for the Salt Lake
County Medical Board succeeded in inducing that
body to pass law prohibiting the sale within
Utah of any preparation containing opium or NOR
phne in any form except upon the prescription Of
regular licensed physician. Their attacks
were particularly directed upon soothing syrups
for children. Why such an onslaught on soothing
sale of soothing syrups would result in hundreds
of mothers going to doctor with their crying
babies, and the doctor could prescribe the same
ingredients contained in the soothing syrup, and
for so doing would charge small fee of from
SOC to So.
But some doctor will rushxo the defense and
exclaim "but doctors are trying to prevent the
promscuous use of sedatives and narcotics Such
a statement. on its face, seems candid and sim
cere, but the facts disprove the statement. In
every drug store in the state there are on file hun
dreds of prescriptions written by physicians
which call for an opiate in some form as one of the
ingredients of the preparation.
These prescriptions were written for the bene-
of suffering individuals. to give them relief
from their tortuous palms. and the doctor who
would refuse TO extend relief under such condi-
tions would be heartess migrate.
But the individual himself might be able to
secure thoroughly safe preparation from his
druggist without calling in the doctor were it not
for the law which prevents the druggist from
making the sale without the Doctors consent. In
other words. the law says that ALL doctors are
reliable and ALL druggists are not. The follow
ing words, spoken by Governor Thomas of Colo.
RADIO. state the matter tersey and truthfuly:
The department of surgery excepted, medicine
is not science. Ii is a series of experiments
more or less successful. and will become science
when the laws of health and disease are fully as
certained and understood This can be done, not
by arresting the progress of experiment and bind
ing men down to hard and fast rules of treatment
but by giving free rein to the man who departs
from the beaten highway and discovers hidden
methods and remedies by the wayside.
The true intent and purpose of the bill is to
restrict the profession of medicine to the three
schools herein mentioned. and then limit the num-
Der of practitioners to suit the judgment of the
composite board People desiring medical or sur
gical service may employ its licentiates or die
without the consolation of the healer This is but
to say that medical trust is to be established
which shall regulate demand and supply by abso-
lutte control of the product which forms its basis,
the general assembly furnishing the appliances
whereby the trust shall become effectual."
Anyway, if President Taft is defeated he will