Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-26
CURB ON HEALING
QUACK IS SOUGHT
Commission Empowered to
Fix Standards Holds Or
ganization Meeting.

A prodigious task lies ahead of the
Commission on Licensure to Practice
the Healing Art in the District, which
had It's organization meeting yesterday.
The commission is called upon to reg
ulate the healing art in all its aspects
More than that, it is given far-reach-
ing powers to regulate by definition of
standards the education would-be heal
ers must possess before setting up as
practitioners.
The commission into whose hands
these powers have been put by act of
Congress Is composed of the president
of the board of District Commissioners,
the district attorney, the United States
commissioner of education, the health
officer of the District and the superin-
tendent of schools.
The law instructs this commission to
establish minimum standards of pre-
professional and professional education
in the healing art" and says that it
may establish minimum standards for
hospitals and for inferno training" 1t
may determine whether profession
al and professional schools or hospitals
attain such standards.
Ordered to Set up Boards.
In order to examine the applicants
for licenses to practice the healing art
in all of its many manifestations, at
the same time safe guarding patients
and not discriminating against any cult
or type OF healer not a regular medical
practitioner, the commission is ordered
to set up examining boards for all the
we'll recognized types of healers and
such other boards of examiners in
drugless healing as are necessary" The
types of treatment are specifically de-
fined as medicine, osteopathy, chiro-
practic, naturopathy and midwifery
In addition to these, there shall be
an examination in the basic sciences
| which are acknowledged to underlie all
of the healing arts. These sciences are
anatomy, physiology, chemistry. bac-
teriology and pathology. The commits
sion is not allowed to issue licenses to
practice the healing art to any one who
does not satisfy this examining board
in the basic sciences that he under
stands the sciences and their applica-
ton to the cure of disease. An excep-
ton is made in the case of those prac-
titioners already established, in order
that the law shall not be made retro
active.
The act is designed to rid the District
in the future of the quacks who up to
date have been enabled to take cor
respondence course Tor not, as they saw
fit in one of the more esoteric of the
healing cults and then set up as
astral healers'' or what not, reaping
rich fees from gullible patients for
services, in many cases, not more help
full than the ministrations of the hex
doctors of Pennsylvania.
May Appoint Examiners.
Under the act any cult may be recog-
nized by application in proper form to
the commission, and the commission
may appoint examining boards for its
| members. But no licenses will issue to
them unless they have had enough
education to obviate most of the tragic
| mistakes possible for ignorant prac-
titioners to perpetrate on innocent
| patients.
The commission, which has had but
| one meeting, admittedly has not
| duties. Health Officer William c.
| Fowler is now on the search for quail
| fed personnel to make up the various
examining boards. Blanks have not yet
even been printed for applications for
licenses. These will quickly be avail
able, however, and the commission will
get down to real work. Most of the
actual work, of course, will fall on the
shoulders of DR.. Fowler, who is ex-
officio secretary-treasurer of the com.
mission. For years DR.. Fowler has
been striving for some legislation tc
elevate the standards of the healing
profession, and If there is not enough
power to accomplish this in the present
legislation, the commission is expressly
ordered, in the terms of the act, tt
report annually to Congress, on the
first Monday in December, its proceed.
ings under the provisions of this act
during the next preceding fiscal year
with recommendations for such further
legislation as may be necessary to pro.
tect the people of the District Of
Columbia from ignorance and quackery
in the practice of the said healing ar
= in the said District"
1
l.. o.