Norwich bulletin., 1915-06-17
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
E ad Laws,

FAD Laws
Mr.. Editor: The following CLEANED
from the editorial columns of a west
ern medical magazine should excite
more than passing notice from intel
igent citizens. This editor under
caption of Bad Laws says:
The medical politicians-always ac-
tive, always offensive to honest men,
greedy, lusting for power-are urging
the passage by the Illinois House of
Representatives of two related laws
that are unjust, meddlesome and I'M
constitutional
One is House Bill 213 requiring the
registration of births within TWENTY
four hours of the event. This is a
good enough law in itself considered,
but its purpose is simply to make
House Bill 5S2 more effective
House Bill $50 is really intended to
open the home to the entrance of
medical politicians, independent of the
desires of the parents and entirely
without regard to the rights of the
family physician and obstetrician. 1t
is advocated under the guise of a ten
der solicitude for the welfare of in
fants.
The state is so kind and motherly
that it does not trust the physicians
it has licensed to practice medicine
but wants to butt in and treat those
infants by the agency of men who, not
having ability to build up a practice
VI llICiI own, nave secured q salary
from the public money. For the pur-
poses of this act any diseased condi-
ton of the eyes with or without dis
| charge, shall be known as opthaluna
moratorium, independent of the ma
ture of the iDfective. SO far as we
know, this is the first time that the
law has intruded upon the domain of
diagnosis, and, allowing nothing for
the skill or intelligence of the physi-
| clan, compels him to report all cases
of inamation of the eyes under one
name.
This law calls upon every physician,
surgeon, midwife nurse, maturity
home or hospital of any nation, par
ent, relative or person assisting in
any way whatsoever the
woman or the child to report the case
within six hours in writing to the To-
cal health authorities.
The grocer's boy who delivers
package, the cook, the visiting neigh
Dor, the next-door gossip, who hap
pens to see or thinks she sees q sore
eye in the new baby is liable to
fine of from SO to $100, if she is so
negIectfua as not to report the case
within six hours after she has made
the diagnosis. It makes no differ
ence that a legally qualified physician
is in attendance; nor that the par
ents have more confidence in him than
in the unknown health board doctor
The family physician may know and
probably does know, more than the
combined members of the board of
health (for political doctors are not
eminent in learning). But that makes
no difference; he is pushed out of the
case, or must use such preventive
measures as the State Board of Health
shall by its rules require.
In as much as the recent graduates
who are usually found in boards of
health-know so much more than ex-
ri, iaio Low
them to provide a scientific prophylac-
tic for gratuitous distributions, to-
gether with proper directions to all
physicians and midwiVes.
1t is not proper to call names, but
we are constrained to say that the
promVlgators, originators and advo-
Gates of such a law are fatuOus, ig-
norant, or silly people, condemned to
a place of everlasting punishment by
the wisdom and discerning care of an
aIl-wise Providence. That is putting
it as mildly as the circumstances will
allow"
DR.. Stewart Close of Brooklyn, N.
Y, in a paper read before the Inter
national Hahnemanian association
said: State medicine is a goal toward
which more progress has been made
than most of us realize, and state
medicine means compulsory medicine.
The gradual and insidious extentiOn of
the sphere of official or state medi-
cine is one of the signs of the times.
Little by little it is encroachine .uDon
the domain of private practice Little
by little compulsory medicine under
the guisc of public health regulations.
state care of various classes of the
community, preventive medicines -
etc, is assuming control in matters
that heretofore has been left, and Of
right should be left, to the private
physician and the personal choice of
the layman.
A. w. DAVIS.
Norwich, June 16, 1915.