| Show A FEDERAL HEALTH BOARD it I 1 is a gratifying to lo note that the bill for the creation of a federal health board will not be allowed to pass with out a protest protect reports of organized vt ris resistance istance come from all parts of tho the country and it may be that the opposition will soon be sufficiently solidified to defeat a project that pio promises infinite mischief for the community and suffering and injustice for the individual the proposal la Is based upon those specious claims that are notoriously hard bard to controvert it if a federal health board were to confine its activities to the promulgation of salutary advice upon hygienic matters to the abatement 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 ari an organization Is needed dut but we know that it will attempt to do far more than this seeing that its adherents havo have loudly proclaimed their intentions indeed there Is no secrecy about them it Is confidently expected that the board will consist of advocates of one school of medicine only it and nd that the methods of that school will be not only recommended but enforced upon the nation indeed a board that was in any way representative 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 nd federal board at all there is no single point t of medical practice upon which allo paths homco paths eclectics and osteopaths could coffod be i in n unison any board that could be devised by the wit of roan man must bo composed of represent representatives aties 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 arid and something worse would happen to them if we are to establish estable a school of medicine it if we are to assert that the government of the united states favors one variety of practice more than others why not establish also a sect ot religion and bostow bestow special authorities upon dap fists methodists and episcopalians Episcopal ians an established school of religious conjecture seems somewhat less objectionable than an established sect of pseudoscientific pseudo scientific conjecture those who suppose that a federal board of health would have no concern with individual rights aro are likely to find themselves undeceived it Is for the purpose of interfering with individual rights that the proposal has baa been made we need no special knowledge of conditions to be aware that wha t may be ba called unorthodox methods of healing bealing have made mad esad sad inroads into the orthodox homeopathy claims a vast number of adherents who are just as well c educated and just as intelligent as those who adhere to the older school osteopathy eclecticism and halt hali a dozen other methods of practice are certainly not losing ground beyond them Is ie the vast and increasing army of those who may bo be classed under the general and vague name of mental menial healers those who are addicted to any of these f 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 m medical edical unorthodoxy to ni medical edical orthodoxy now the argonaut holds no brief for any of the excesses and ana the superstitions ions connected with the care of the body in which this ago age to is so rife but it does feel concerned for the preservation of human liberty and for the rights of the individual to doctor him belf in any way lie he pleases so long as he does not indubitably threaten nL the health of the community he may take large doses or small ones or ar no doses at all he may be m massaged ass aged anointed with oil or prayed over just as the whim of the moment may dictate and probably it makes no 0 particle of difference which he does but he be has the right to choose just as he be chooses the color of his necktie ar the character of his underclothing it la Is not a matter in which any wise government will seek to interfere this thia is IF precisely the liberty that the health board intends to take from him orthodox medicine conscious of KB its losses Is trying to buttress itself by federal statute to exalt to the status of a privileged caste and to create an established school of medicine just as some other countries havo bave allowed themselves to create an established school of religion it ii to Is for the common sense of the community to rebuke that effort and to ro re pel an unwarranted invasion upon elementary human rights san fran cisco argonaut |
