A Union of Medicine and State.

Selected writings of John King.

What John King wrote concerning the Union of Church and State applies to a union of medicine and the State: "A union of Church and State was most positively repudiated by our Savior, when He said, 'Ye can not serve God and mammon,' and also, 'Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's.' " (The Coming Freeman, p. 44.) The practice of medicine, ever changing as it must necessarily be to keep pace with scientific revelations, should be free from all connection with either government or politics. It is no more rational to attempt to link medicine with the State than to effect a union of Church and State.—Ed. Gleaner.

A UNION OF MEDICINE AND STATE.— "The originators of these petitions for special medical legislation claim that they desire 'to protect the people' whereas the course they have pursued and still pursue towards all not of their school, towards all who do not think, speak, and act in accordance with themselves, renders it self-evident that they desire to protect and to stabilitate themselves, to effect a union of Medicine and State, that they may, through despotic and persecutive enactments, wipe out all other medical schools and modes of practice in order that they may ultimately enjoy sole possession of a powerful, unconstitutional, anti-American, State medical monopoly. If they honestly desire the people's good, instead of conspiring to defraud those who differ from their medical views of their rights, why do they not confine themselves to their legitimate sphere, attacking the sources of disease and death that are so common throughout the land? "Why is there not so much disease produced, injury effected, or death occasioned in a period of five years by all the 'irregular' practitioners in this country as by the illiterate physicians among the 'regulars' in any one year ?—and there are many such.

"But if it be protection for the people that they are really striving for, we would direct their attention to the injuries and deaths annually effected through railroads and for which in most cases nobody appears to be to blame! We would remind them of the well-known facts that more positive injury, more terrible misery and disease, and a greater number of deaths are annually inflicted upon a community through drinking saloons and bawdy houses than would or could be effected in a century by all the uneducated physicians in the United States, and yet they have asked for no legislation concerning these, nor is any statement required of bawds or liquor dealers as to their capabilities for safely and healthfully carrying on their respective businesses, nor is registration demanded of them! Much injury is annually inflicted upon the public from adulterated groceries, from the use of deleterious articles in bread, cake, and confectioneries, from the ingestion of diseased meats, and so on; yet it is well known that grocers, bakers, confectioners, and butchers are not called upon to exhibit their certificates of study or apprenticeship, nor have the 'regulars' asked that they be required to register! They are merely occupied in persecuting those freemen who dare to think and act in opposition to their ideas.

"Now, when the parties just referred to—grocers, bakers, etc.— do wrong, commit malpractice, consummate the overt act, then, and not till then, are they amenable to law and penalty; and such should likewise be the case with physicians—for in this country every man and woman has the positive and undoubted right of pursuing any trade or profession that he or she pleases, so long as no injury to others is thereby effected. Besides, when a class of persons is sustained by mistaken legislation and not by merit, what guarantee has the public that much wrong and injury may not be committed and concealed or denied by these favored sycophants?" —KING, Address on Special Medical Legislation, Eclectic Medical Journal, 1884.

The Biographies of King, Howe, and Scudder, 1912, was written by Harvey Wickes Felter, M. D.