Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1911 — A FEDERAL HEALH BOARD. [ARTICLE]

A FEDERAL HEALH BOARD.

It is gratifying to note that the bill for the creation of a federal health; board-will not be allowed to pass without a protest. Reports of organized resistance come from all parts of tl© country, and It may be that the opposition will soon be sufficiently solidified to defeat a project that promises infinite mischief for the community, and suffering and injustice for the individual. 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 abatement of quackery, and to the purity of drugs, it might be possible to say much In its favor, although it woulfi 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 its adherents 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 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 representative of the medieal profession as a whole would be stullfled by its own disagreements. Outside the domain of simple hygiene, for which we need no federal board at all, 4kere is no single point of- medical practice upon which allopaths, homeopaths, eclectics and osteopaths could be in unison. Any board that could be divised 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 a school of, medicine, if we are to assert that the government of the United States favors one variety of praotice more than others, why not establish also a sect of religion and bestow special authorities upon Baptists, Methodists and Episcopalians? An established school of religibuf conjecture seems somewhat less objectionable than an established sect of pseudo-scientific oonjecture. Those who suppose that a federal board of health would have no concern with individual rights are likely to find themselves undeceived. It is for the purpose of interfering with individual 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 inroads 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, eclecticism, 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 classed 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 porposes 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 superstitions connected with the care of the body in which this age is so rife. But It does feel concerned for the preservation of human liberty and for the rights of the individual to doctor himself 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 dictate, and probably it makes no particle 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 government will seek to Interfere. This is precisely the liberty that the health board Intends to take from him. Orthodox medicine, conscious of its 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 aB some other countries have allowed themselves to create an established school of religion. It is for the common sense of the community to rebuke that effort and to repel an unwarranted Invasion upon elementary human rights. —San Francisco Argonaut.