To establish an independent health service : speech of Hon. John D. Works ... in the Senate of the United States, Monday and Tuesday, April 29 and 30, 1912.

  • Works, John D. (John Downey), 1847-1928.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To establish an independent health service : speech of Hon. John D. Works ... in the Senate of the United States, Monday and Tuesday, April 29 and 30, 1912. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    healing the true or even a better one than theirs. It is not theirs to learn, but to stick dogmatically to the contention that no one can be right but them. Other people have seen their error and the falsity of their ideas of healing, but they seem incapable of appreciating a patent fact that millions of people have learned to their inestimable advantage. Mr. President, there is still another side of this important question that should not be allowed to escape the attention of the Senate. It is this: I have already pointed out that the medical activity of the Government in all its branches is in the hands of and completely under the influence and control of one school of medicine, and every publication sent out as informa- tion coming from the National Govei'nment is now, and will continue to be under this bill, the views of one school of medi- cine, and that a school which has been largely discredited. When the Government becomes the publisher and distributor of information obtained by and relating to this school of medicine, it establishes a State medicine and makes it strictly sectarian. This is bound to continue just so long as one school of medicine is intrusted with the management of health matters. It may be said that this bill provides against discrimination as between different schools of medicine. But while the bureau is under the control of one school and no physician or surgeon of any other school is employed by the Government, such a provision amounts to nothing. The Government has maintained this sec- tarianism in medicine for over 40 years. Its health activities have been completely dominated by one sect to the exclusion of all others. The Government has no more right to sanction or support sectarianism in medicine than in religion. One is just as nmch of a violation of the freedom of the citizen as the other. There are millions of people in this country who believe in the homeo- pathic and eclectic modes of healing, and millions more who do not believe in drug healing of any kind. But not one of these has any recognition whatever by the Government as represented by the present medical bureaus, nor will they have under this bill if it becomes a law. By these publications the Government is simply promoting the views of one school of medicine to the exclusion of all others. And worse still, they are not a report of established or known facts, but of mere opinions opposed to the views of other equally competent schools of medicine, and generally found in the end to be erroneous. Such a publicity bureau shuts out the views, opinions, investigations, and discoveries of every other school of medicine, composed, in part, of some of the ablest men and brightest minds in the country. If we take the publications of the present health bureaus, and the people of this country were dependent upon them for their information, they would never know that a homeopathic, eclectic, or any other school of medi- cine or healing existed. And if the bureaus should speak on the subject, it would be to discredit any school but the one. If such publications are of any use to the public, they should be made nonsectarian and inform the people of every discovery, advance, or change in health affairs from whatever source and without bias or prejudice. This could never be expected from present bureaus or any consolidation of them. The chief reason is that this legislation 41017—10000