The DOCTORS' PLOT! 
A Report of Prof. Charles Wesley Emerson’s Elea before the Public Health) Committee of the Legislature in Oppo- 
sition to the Proposed Bill to Regulate the Practice of Medicine in Massachusetts. 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: I wish before speaking on this pro- 
posed Bill, to define my individual position by saying, first, I do not 
practice medicine, neither do I wish to, nor have I any personal 
friend practicing or wishing to practice, whom this Bill would in the 
least affect. I am not here in the interests of any person or class. 
Many of the members of the State Homeopathic Society, as well as 
very many members of the Eclectic State Medical Society, together 
with some of the members of the Massachusetts State Medical Socie- 
ty, have petitioned you not to recommend legislation on this sub- 
ject. But I do not represent any of these societies, nor do I repre- 
sent the Spiritualists who oppose this Bill. I am not a Spiritualist, 
and have no belief in it whatever. I object to this Bill because it is 
opposed to the well-being of the people of this Commonwealth, by 
impeding progress in the art of curing disease. 
The President of the Massachusetts State Medical Society stated 
to this Committee that the most useful information he had ever re- 
ceived was given him by a nurse. We have only begun to learn the 
practice of medicine. Scarcely any branch of it can be called exact 
science. There are some things to be learned yet, even in anatomy; 
and much in physiology. Progress in these two departments we 
must necessarily look to the learned for, but it does not follow that 
these learned scientists will be graduates of any medical college. 
The facts go to show that a large number of the discoveries in these 
sciences have come from men who are not M. D.s. Some of the 
names that stand the highest on this continent, and on the other, as 
discoverers and authors, whose books are looked upon as the best 
authorities contributing to the knowledge of anatomy and physiolo- 
gy, have never graduated from any medical college. Yet this Bill, if 
passed, will prevent such men not only from practicing medicine, 
but even debar them the privilege of an examination. It might seem 
to those who have only superficially examined this Bill that it is at 
least an intended stimulant to education. But it is not even this; 
for it will not permit a man to practice on the ground that he can pass 
a creditable examination on all the branches supposed to be requi- 
site to a thorough medical education, for it will not even evamfee 
the C.jndidate unless, in addition to his knowledge and fitness, he 
also presents the board of censors a diploma from some approved 
medical college. Disguise it as they may, the regular M. D.s of Mas- 
sachusetts are simply asking for a monopoly, by the guarantee of a 
legislative enactment. 
Progress in anatomyand physiology, as we have stated, comes in 
the nature of things from the learned, but the progress in therapeu- 
tics (the meaning of which Webster defines “that part of medicine 
which respects the discovery and application of remedies for dis- 
eases ”) has, and still continues to, come from the unlearned. The 
materia medica is almost entirely made from the discoveries of the 
unschooled. An entire change in the treatment of diseases has 
taken place in all schools during the last fifty years. Prior to that 
time the human system was literally loaded with mineral poison by 
the doctors, they vainly hoping that disease was not merely lack of 
health, but an entity, that could be killed by pouring deadly mineral 
poison into the body of the patient on the one hand, and on the other 
drawing away all the good blood in the arteries. Samuel Thomson 
was the first successful innovator upon this horrid system of prac- 
tice ; and he was an uneducated farmer, who could barely write his 
name. The ignorance in the learned profession was so great at that 
time concerning the remedial properties to be found in the vegetable 
kingdom, from which Thomson drew all his medicines, that upon 
Thomson’s losing a patient he was arrested for willful murder; and 
at his trial the poison of which the patient was said to have died was 
brought forward by a regular M. D. of this same school in whose in- 
terest they would have you pass this Bill. Upon examination it was 
discovered to be the harmless root of marsh-rosemary, used in mak- 
ing common candy at the present time. The cures this man wrought 
wherever he went seemed, in contrast with the success of the regu- 
lar practitioner, to be little less than miraculous. The news of his 
wonderful cures spread abroad, not by his advertising them, but it 
was told from man to man. The people rejoiced in the new light, the 
physicians tried to suppress him, but the people would have him. At 
last the doctors said, if the people will be doctored by this quackery, 
viz., roots and herbs, we cannot lose our practice; and hence we are 
compelled to sit at the feet of this ignorant old “ quack,” and learn 
what he gives, and how he performs these wonderful cures. And so 
Thomson’s remedies are now used by every medical school, though 
they still decry his name. And these compounds of Thomson’s, and 
his many discoveries, to the number of more than one hundred, are 
sold by all druggists in America and Europe. His system now is a 
part of the recognized system, even among the members of the Mas- 
sachusetts State Medical Society. 
The Water Cure system has a similar history. So of all the differ- 
ent elements that now compose the regular practice. Every one was 
fought in its turn by the regular schoolmen ; but the people were 
benefited, and therefore, notwithstanding it has ever been made 
scandalous to employ a person outside the regular practice, yet “ all 
that a man hath will he give for his life.” So these systems the regu- 
lar schools were compelled to adopt, or else be left among the fossils 
of the past. 
I brought before you a member of the family of the far-famed 
“ natural bone setters.” For two hundred and fifty years their sys- 
tem, called the “ rotary ” system, was fought back by the colleges 
of medicine, and kept out of the regular practice until the people 
were determined to have this graceful and easy method of bone- 
setting ; and then the regulars were forced to adopt it; and again 
the schoolmen were compelled to move forward a step. Now they 
say, “ Do not let any more men practice outside the regular system, 
for we are tired of moving on. We wish to draw our robes about us 
and rest. We might have been resting these hundreds of years had 
it not been for the ‘ quack ’ compelling us to learn first this improve- 
ment in medicine and then that, or else lose our practice and stand one 
side and see the money all go into the pockets of the man who cures, 
he having plenty and to spare, while we starve on our ‘ sheepskin.’ ’ 
It seems, at first thought, very strange that these marvelous im- 
provements in treating disease, and even in bone-setting, should come 
from persons who have not read, and can give no scientific name to 
the diseases they cure, or even tell the anatomical names of the 
bones they set; yet these are the facts, and not even the promoters 
of this Bill will dare attempt a denial of them. But this seeming 
eccentricity of nature is not alone confined to discoveries in the 
healing art, but is true of nearly all the improvements. Common 
people give us our improvements, and the schoolmen spend their 
time in giving Greek and Latin names to these improvements, 
and building metaphysical theories concerning them. George Ste- 
venson, the inventor of the locomotive, could scarcely read—he was 
a poor, ignorant collier. He knew nothing of the laws of mechanics, 
never heard of a school of Technology. Yet nobody thought the 
less of his invention because he could not pass an examination con- 
cerning the very principles of mechanics which he had been apply- 
ing. Even Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, was not a 
scientist, and could not have passed a creditable examination before 
any college board of examiners ; yet we do not think the less of these 
wires which, like so many nerves, bring into harmony all the fami- 
lies of man. 
Again, disguise it as the friends of this proposed Bill may, the 
measure is a proposal for class-legislation! The immortal Lincoln 
said, “This is a government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people.” This Bill proposes to govern the people for the doctors, 
and by the doctors. It is even worse than that: it proposes to put 
this monopoly, not into the hands of all the educated, graduated 
physicians, but into the hands of those who happen at this time to be 
members of the different State Medical Societies. 
At this point I wish to refer to the physician brought here, by the 
petitioners of this Bill, from New Hampshire, who was used for the 
purpose-of makingyou believe that Massachusetts is full of “quacks.” 
He read you quite a lengthy letter from a physician residing in Con- 
cord. The whole letter, if seen in the light of unvarnished facts, 
will show your honorable body who started this movement to legis- 
late in favor of certain physicians, as some States have essayed to 
do, an(J which other States, when importuned, refuse to do, among 
the latter Wisconsin being entitled to honorable mention—a State 
which, while this hearing has been going forward, has nobly re- 
fused to legislate in favor of a class of men who are unable to con- 
vince the people that they are of sufficient value to the community 
to entitle them to patronage. The points in this letter, sent by one 
physician from New Hampshire and read to you by another, were to 
the effect that an attempt had been made to »-epeal the law in New 
Hampshire by some of its citizens, or, rattier, by Massachusett 
“ quacks,” together with a few persons in New Hampshire who had 
sent in dead men’s names on the petition for a repeal! Notice the 
charge, gentlemen, which a physician in Concord makes against the 
inhabitants of his own State without any warrant or proof. What 
will the citizens of New Hampshire say when they hear what a physi- 
cian in their capital has charged them with? This unfounded state- 
ment shows the true spirit of those who are interested in the mak- 
ing and perpetuity of such sumptuary laws. This writer would 
leave an entirely different impression from what is correct on your 
minds, in saying that a man from Lebanon tried to get this law re- 
pealed, and during the last session was seen hanging around the 
State House, “ button-holing ” the members; and that certain law- 
yers, who were members of the Legislature, were supposed to hold 
retainers’ fees in their pockets. He went on to insinuate that money 
had been raised by Massachusetts “ quacks ” to do all these things, 
saying that somebody had said, in the steam-cars, to somebody else, 
that he would give one thousand dollars to get the law repealed. He 
further stated that the agitation against their New Hampshire law 
had been started by one Hayden in Massachusetts, etc., etc. 
Now while all this is not precisely legitimate to the subject under 
discussion here, yet on the ground that the petitioners have seen fit 
to present this testimony for want of better, I shall attemptto show, 
hy a true recital of this whole affair, what the real animus of these 
law-movers is. This physician from New Hampshire said at the 
time the repeal was attempted in that State, that talent was im- 
ported from abroad, insinuating that this wonderful thousand dollars 
given by somebody, nobody knows who, in addition to its buying up 
members of the New Hampshire Legislature, also sent this “ talent” 
to advocate the repeal. The facts about this whole matter, gentle- 
men, are as follows : The law above mentioned had been in force in 
New Hampshire for about two years, when a member of the Legisla- 
ture from Lebanon, who was not a doctor of the “ quack ” order, or 
any other, but a most estimable merchant, a noble, high-minded and 
genuine lover of humanity, discovering certain great wrongs that had 
been permitted under this doctors’ monopoly, presented a Bill for a 
repeal of said law, and being an old and true friend of mine, and 
knowing that I saw the inhumanity of this law in the light in which 
he saw it, wrote me, asking if I would come to Concord and assist 
him in presenting the petition for a repeal; telling me there was no 
money to be paid, but if I would come and give my services in the 
name of humanity, to come. He did not know when the hearing 
would take place. Days went by and weeks ; we could not under- 
stand the reason for the delay; at last a day was appointed, and we 
went, and found the city literally filled with doctors from ail parts of 
the country. They had, on the day appointed for the hearing, a 
meeting of all the Societies in the State ; then it dawned upon us 
why the delay for the hearing had been so long. These doctors ap- 
pointed their speakers, and such a flocking of doctors to the State 
House could only ne accounted for on the ground that their craft was 
in danger. There were lawyers on the Committee before which the 
hearing came, and these lawyers reported in favor of a repeal, after 
hearing the argument on both sides. The writer of the letter I have 
just referred to as being sent by one physician and read before you 
by another, was one of the speakers appearing in favor of the New 
Hampshire law. One of the doctors came forward at that time, and 
declared that a “ quack ” in Massachusetts said he would give one 
hundred thousand dollars to repeal the law; they have now modified 
the report to one thousand; at this ratio of reduction by next year it 
will be ten cents. 
Now compare these plain statements with the insinuations of this 
New Hampshire doctor’s letter. 
The same kind of spirit has been shown here to some extent. 
Only yesterday a statement was made here that of some fifty or more 
names for the remonstrants purporting to come from Salem, only 
three could be found in the Salem directory. As you yourselves will 
see by due investigation, these names did not purport to be from 
Salem. No place is affixed to these names. A forced construction 
was placed on the fact that the gentleman who placed these names 
on the table wrote something like this on the paper connected with 
their names: “ Mr. So-and-So, from Salem, sends in so many names,” 
the explanation of which is this : the gentleman who collected the 
names has an office in Salem, whence he sent this list; but he has 
business in other towns taking him daily from Salem, and he col- 
lected other names in the localities visited, presenting them all, at 
last, as the names of citizens of Massachusetts, without giving the 
place of residence, thinking it unnecessary to mention the towns 
visited, since this matter is not a town but a State affair. This sim- 
ply shows to what extremes persons engaged in the engineering of 
this hoped for monopoly will go. 
The object of the petitioners for the passage of this proposed Bill is 
to make the number of physicians in the State small, and thereby 
constitute the greatest money monopoly ever heard of in this coun- 
try, or any other, men every member oi me proiession in this State 
will have security of practice, whether he helps or hinders the sick, 
and they will not only have plenty to do, but can charge whatever 
price they please for their services, and there is no appeal; for there 
is no other doctor permitted to practice, without pains and penalties. 
The real purpose and intent of the Bill is hidden under two very 
popular disguises. First, that of a higher standard of education, 
and secondly, the extermination of “quackery.” We will notice 
these points in their respective order: 
First, Is this Bill in the interests of higher education ? We have 
already shown that it will hinder progress in medical knowledge. 
Let us see what the Bill actually does by its licenses and prohibi- 
tions. In the very start it gives all the members of the various State 
societies a license to practice without an examination. And yet 
many of the members of these various State societies, it is well 
known, have never received a diploma from any medical college, and 
many others who have a diploma in said societies took it from some 
one of the very colleges this Board of Examiners will condemn. 
Much has been said condemnatory of the ignorance of many doc- 
tors who are oidside the pale of these State societies. I will offset 
that by stating something concerning the ignorance of those inside 
tiie pale : A druggist asked a gentleman the other day what he would 
make of the following: “ Ag Moni.” The gentleman, although a 
learned physician, did not know, neither did the druggist. Another 
member of the Massachusetts State Medical Society was asked to 
state what a common dose of morphine is. He replied from one to five 
grains. In one of your highly approved medical colleges of this State 
the old Caloric theory of heat was taught five years ago, and is to-day 
for aught I know. I should hope that learned (?) professor would not 
be on the Board of Examiners provided in this bill; for in that case 
no true and accepted scientist could get a license, simply because he 
would answer correctly, and the Professor would not know it. 
Much has been said about the manifest ignorance of “ quacks ” 
who sign certificates of death. Did they give us anything that could 
excel the following from a regular M. D.? “ Not certain of the cause 
of death. Do n’t know whether it *was scarlet fever or from eating 
too much Bellona sausage.” 
They tell you this bill is for the purpose of weeding out pretend- 
ers; but they do not tell us how it is to work this most desirable 
change. They raise a great cry about “ quacks.” A “ quack ” sim- 
ply means one who pretends to do something he cannot do. That 
there are such pretenders in the medical profession, and in every 
other profession, nobody thinks of denying; and far be it from me, 
or any opposer of this Bill, to defend such. The people all have a 
common interest in rooting out all such, and many persons have signed 
the petition for the passage of this Bill because it was represented to 
them that this would exterminate that obnoxious race; but has any 
one shown us how this Bill, if passed, has any power to sift them 
out? It has no such power, but, on the contrary, it protects them. 
It is a wall of fire around all the “ quacks ” who are inside the medi- 
cal societies, and where is the man who possesses the audacity to 
say there are no “quacks ” inside those societies? Yet this Bill will 
compel the people to employ them, because no choice is left them; 
for the number from which to choose, should such a Bill as this pass, 
would be kept exceedingly small. Note another means which this 
Bill provides for keeping the number small: 
By the terms of this Bill no one is eligible to an examination mere- 
ly because he is sufficiently learned, or has graduated, unless he 
shall have graduated from a college which they approve. Thus their 
power is wholly arbitrary. They can cut down the number of candi- 
dates, at any time, by disapproving the colleges from which they 
graduated, though every such college holds a charter from the State 
in which it exists. Again, another means is provided for lessening 
the number of physicians, in the clause about “ a good moral charac- 
ter.” The Bill provides that any person having a good moral char- 
acter shall be licensed, if such person has practiced within the State 
ten consecutive years, yet, although this looks very fair on the face 
of it, by looking a little deeper we shall see that no criterion of 
morals is established, but the matter is left wholly to this Board of 
Examiners. How easy and how consistent it is with the entire spirit 
of this Bill to say, “ If you have practiced ten years without being a 
member of our Society or having studied medicine in the regular 
way, you are a “quack,” and you have been humbugging the people 
ten years, and no licensfe shall be granted to a man who is immoral 
enough to humbug the people for that period.” For if this Bill 
means anything it means to teach that all persons who have not been 
through a medical college are humbugs unless they belong to one of 
the State medical societies. Thus all such can be cut off. 
They tell you of criminal practices among “ quacks ” that this Bill 
will put a stop to. Gentlemen, I hold in my hand the names of four 
physicians now residing in this city, who are members of the old 
Massachusetts State Medical Society, in good and regular standing, 
who have been before the court for the crime of producing abortion, 
and also the name of one who is now serving his time in the State 
Prison for arson; so that it seems that the Massachusetts State 
Medical Society is not in a condition to “cast the first stone”; but 
still it asks that you throw around them, by special legislation, the 
arm of the law, lest people shall employ better men outside the regu- 
lar societies. 
Again, this Bill takes away, without compensation, an honorable 
and successful business from a large number of persons, which is 
most unjust and cruel. And what does this law propose to call a 
crime? Simply this : the restoring to life and health a human being. 
This Bill does not ask the question, “Does this man cure the sick?” 
No ; if he cures him twice, it makes him pay one thousand dollars ; 
if he cures a patient three times, it imprisons him. Surely such a 
law is nothing better than barbarous. 
Again, I object to the Bill because it practically puts into the hands 
of one medical society arbitrary power; and that society so hostile 
to the other societies that, according to the testimony of the presi- 
dent of that society, they will not counsel with a Homeopath or an 
Eclectic, though the patient calling for counsel is dying and this 
counsel will save his life. This rests not alone upon the testimony 
of this president; it is one of the rules of the by-laws of said so- 
ciety. This Bill would force the two small State societies into the 
very jaws of this inhuman lion; although one quarter part of the 
members of one of these societies have sent in their written or verbal 
remonstrance; and a large and influential part of this other society 
also join in the remonstrance, led by no less a member than its worthy 
secretary, Dr. Morse, of Salem, a man of high social standing and 
extensive practice. Other eminent Homeopathic physicians of this 
city, members of the State society, and Professors in the Medical 
College, sent up their names, but you have not had time to hear them. 
Again, I object to this Bill because it proposes to legislate away 
the sacred rights and dearest privileges of the people. What is so 
sacred to a man as his own life? Yet this Bill proposes he shall not 
be allowed to choose the means of his own recovery if he is ill. 
Let us notice the ground upon which the petitioners ask for the 
passage of such a bill: 
1st, They claim that the medical profession needs protection from 
the competition of “ quacks,” and to this end they brought a Bishop 
from, I do not know where, neither do I know what he was Bishop 
of—I only know the lawyer for the petitioners was very careful to 
make you understand he was a Bishop. This Bishop said the medi- 
cal profession was a very honorable one and needed protection; he 
said also that the clergy needed protection just the same as the doc- 
tors, because there were so many “ quack ” preachers. Now what is 
the burden of this argument ? If it means anything it means, “ We 
hope you will pass a bill to protect the doctors this year, and then a 
bill next year cutting off all ministers from preaching who are not in 
this ” (or in some other bishop’s) “ diocese.” I admire the candor of 
that Bishop, and I feel greatly obliged to him for helping our side so 
much. If we had said there is no difference between the doctors 
asking for a bill to protect them, and that of ministers asking one to 
protect the clergy, the advocates of this Bill would have said there 
was a difference; but now that it comes from one of their own choos- 
ing—one they had brought here because he was a Bishop, thinking 
thereby, as they have in several other instances, to overawe us—it 
strikes them dumb that this good, simple-hearted Bishop, should, all 
unintentionally, “ let the cat out of the bag,” by saying, in substance: 
“ Please pass this Bill for the doctors, and then pass one for us min- 
isters, so that we can get larger salaries, for we need more money as 
much as the doctors do.” 
They have brought you the names of other prominent clergymen. 
What we would like to know is, whether these clergymen who sent 
in their names for this petition know what they are doing, and are, 
hence, using this as an entering wedge to bring back the oppression 
of the ages gone by, or whether they do not see the bearing of this 
Bill. I am happy to say I incline to the latter opinion; for I know a 
number who signed this petition who are now sorry, saying they 
would never have signed ii had they known its full meaning. All they 
meant by signing it was to get rid of pretenders, but they now see 
the Bill is not calculated in the least to do that, but is simply asking 
for the most crushing monopoly that ever bore down upon the com- 
mon people. All this cry for the medical societies, all this telling 
how the poor members of the medical societies have flat pocket- 
books because the people will persist in employing other physicians 
is contemptible. Foor, poor regulars! how hungry they go because 
the people are not compelled to take their calomel, and prefer the 
harmless root and-herb doctor! Why, all this lamentation in behalf 
of the doctors, because they may not compel the people to employ 
them, makes me think of the little hoy whose mother was showing 
him a picture of Daniel in the lions’ den; the little fellow began to 
cry bitterly, when the mother said: “You pity poor Daniel, don’t 
you, because the lions are going to eat him up?” His reply, amid 
his sobs, was, “ I was not thinking anything about Daniel. I was 
thinking about that poor little lion in the corner, who won’t get any, 
’cause the old lions will eat him all up first.” 
In all this cry for a Bill to protect the members of the old medical 
societies, not a word is said for the common people, whom Daniel 
represents in the lions’ den. This Bill takes away all possible com- 
petition, which is the only safeguard of the people. 
No price for medical advice or treatment is mentioned in this Bill. 
All is left to the nine despots of the proposed Board of Examiners, 
clothed with absolute power, and these despots are the interested 
party. They may say, if the price is too high, people need not em- 
ploy the doctor. But what kind of an apology is that? People can- 
not help being sick, and they cannot lie and die, as these monopo- 
lists very well know; hence those members of the medical societies, 
who have no practice now, and who, for want of natural fitness, 
ought never to have any, the people will be compelled to employ. 
Why, gentlemen, when I think of the inhumanity of this Bill, and, 
practically, those who advocate it, I am dumb with horror. The 
grocers might as well band themselves together and ask for legal 
monopoly. The friends of this Bill tell you there is an immense 
amount of malpractice among the outside doctors, yet they have 
failed to point out a single case. Go look at the law reports, and 
you will find scarcely a case of malpractice outside the members of 
these societies, while the reports of those inside are innumerable. 
They talk to us as though we had no law now to regulate the prac- 
tice of medicine, when the truth is we have laws that cover every 
imaginable case of wrong doing, in this matter, that law can cover. 
We have already, for instance, a law that if a man advertises him- 
Self as M- D- wlifil) hue J24>* th&b titbQy Ho Oviii itI «,<uce Ut5 
ed for obtaining money under false pretences, and the penalty is 
State Prison. Again, we have the strictest laws concerning mal- 
practice, making bad or injurious medical practice also a State 
Prison offence. Now I ask in all candor what more we need? No 
further legislation is possible without abridging the rights of the 
people by taking from them power to choose for one’s self what 
physician he shall have. 
Please notice this is a contest not between “ quacks ” on the one 
hand and educated, honest physicians on the other, but, simply, may 
the people elect the person they wish to treat them when sick, or 
may they not? 
No testimony whatever has been brought, during this protracted 
hearing, against the practice of those who work outside the regular 
schools. Mark one thing in all the testimony presented: not a 
physician among the “irregulars” has testified; they have all mod- 
estly stayed in the background, while their works have praised them. 
The witnesses are persons in every walk of life except the doctors. 
Every one who has testified has stated that he was first given up to 
die by the regular physicians before he employed one of the outside 
physicians. The Regulars have no reason to complain, for all these 
persons gave them the first chance, and in many instances were doc- 
tored by them until they had no money left to pay the outside doc- 
tor who finally cured them. Does not this crowd of witnesses show 
plainly that if you will legislate some way, it certainly should not 
be against those who have wrought the cures ? 
The President of the old Massachusetts State Medical Society de- 
clared to you that cancer could not be cured. Thus, through the 
mouth of their chief, the regular physicians declare they cannot cure 
cancer; yet I have brought witness after witness to testify that they 
have been cured of cancer by these irregular physicians, whom this 
Bill would cut off from practice. One might say these were another 
kind of tumor, and not cancer; but we have been careful to guard 
that point by proving, in every case, that the regular physicians pro- 
nounced it a cancer, and incurable. The President, above referred 
to, said it was a blood disease, and hence incurable. The cases we 
have presented here have been well ever since the cancers were 
taken out, and they were taken out years ago. They testified that 
the doctors, who cured the cancers, gave them medicine for the blood 
at the same time. Thus we have proved that these cancer-curers take 
the cancer out without the use of the knife, and that their knowledge 
of blood-remedies enables them to eliminate all tendency to cancer 
from the blood. Can the people afford to be deprived of doctors who 
are known to cure cancers in innumerable cases, and be compelled 
to content themselves with a class of physicians who come in here 
and testify to you that they cannot cure a cancer? Cancer is a dis- 
ease more dreaded than any other, and yet a very common disease. 
Think of the despair of the poor patient, when he is told by one of 
the doctors whom this Bill would protect and give the monopoly to, 
“ You have a cancer, and I am powerless to help you. You must be 
eaten up slowly by this most loathsome disease while yet alive.” 
Imagine this Bill taking effect as a law, and though the dying patient 
begs of the old cancer-curer for help, he dare not, for the prison 
walls loom up before his sight. 
Who has favored this Bill beside the lawyers, who were hired to do 
so, and a few physicians? Did the honored President of the Boston 
University? To be sure he was brought before you to advocate that 
side. Did he do so? Wo / He warned you against putting so much 
power into the hands of one class. Not once did he favor this Bill by 
a single expression. His arguments were all on the other side ; tell- 
ing you of the tyranny concerning this medical matter in the despotic 
States of Europe. Did he ask you to follow the example of those old 
oppressive governments! No! Did the President of the Young 
Men’s Christian Union favor this Bill ? He did not say one word 
about the Bill. 
The advocates of this Bill tell you the people need the guardianship 
of the Medical Society, because the people do not know what they 
want. This has ever been the voice of despotism. I will not go 
over the testimony in detail; I will content myself by mentioning a 
single case, which you recognize to be a fair representative of the 
testimony which has come before you, throughout this entire 
hearing: 
Mr. Nye of Augusta, Me., sent to this honorable Committee a let- 
ter, asking you not to recommend any legislation in favor of any such 
law as this Bill proposes, in which he gives a statement of his own 
case and others. Permit me to tell you who this man is. He is Su- 
perintendent of an Orthodox Sunday school. He has been Treasurer 
of the Maine Central Railroad for seventeen years, and for many 
years State Commissioner of Insurance ; also Centennial Committee 
from Maine ; a man of the highest standing. This gentleman testifies 
that he was taken ill while on a visit to West Point, some ten years 
since, with sciatica. The eminent surgeon of the place attended 
him, but gave him no relief ; finally told him he could not hope to be 
better for one year, at least. He then came home and employed 
the most eminent of the Maine doctors, but with no success. Finally, 
a magnetic healer, (a resident of Boston,) cured him with one treat- 
ment. Mr. Nye also speaks of the case of his wife, who had a can- 
cer. The best doctors of Boston, the most eminent in the regular 
faculty, were consulted. Finally they decided that within ten days 
the knife would be her only chance of prolonging life. A clairvoyant 
said, “ Do not use the knife.” A magnetic healer was then employed, 
and the wife was cured. This was ten years ago, and the wife has 
been well up to date. These, gentlemen, are not isolated cases, but 
of every-day and hour occurrence, in every part of the State. 
Gentlemen, although I do not, like my brother Giles here, believe 
spirits of the departed produce these cures, yet we all must believe 
that some great physiological law is here involved, the discovery of 
which is of the highest value to mankind; and I ask you, in the 
name of God and humanity, not to recommend a bill that shall cut off 
these benefactors from practicing within this Commonwealth. 
You must have noticed the great crowd that has attended this hear- 
ing from the first. You also have not failed to notice, by their demon- 
strations, that they are utterly opposed to this Bill, and most of them 
eager to testify what great good has been done them by the persons 
whom this Bill will cut off. A mother became so anxious that, al- 
though the time was filled, yet she cried out to you from the depths 
of her grief and fear, in the name of God, not to pass this Bill, for 
her life and that of her friends had been saved by these persons of 
natural medical genius. 
I but voice the prayer of the vast majority of the citizens of this 
Commonwealth when I pray you not to deprive us of the help of 
those persons who have again and again proved themselves possessed 
of the natural and improved gifts which make them the physicians ! 
Will you take away the persons who have been our family physicians 
for years, in whom we have the utmost confidence, who have saved 
us and our little ones when all scholastic skill gave us up to die, and 
in their places compel us to take the young man just passed from the 
hand of this board of censors, with no other claim upon our confidence 
than the fact that he has a good memory or is the son of a rich father 
who would have him a professional man, because it gives him higher 
caste in society, when, according to the laws of his organization, he 
should have been a coal heaver, or at best a shoemaker? 
The subject before us is of the gravest character. It is a matter of 
individual choice in a case of life and death. In the simplest words 
possible, we pray you not to take away from us, the common people, 
the one we choose to stand by us in the hour of our sorest need. Do 
not take away from us—who believe that Dr. Morse, of Salem, who 
was for years a professor in the medical department of the Boston 
University, spoke the truth when he said that some men were born 
physicians, and such were always successful practitioners, even if 
uneducated, while he knew many who, though having graduated 
from the oldest medical college in Massachusetts, were never known 
to help a patient—the power to choose these natural physicians, to 
whose wonderful cures so many testify. 
The natural physicians will not go to your approved medical col- 
lege; they have methods of study peculiar to themselves. Think of 
the “Sweet family of natural bone setters” being compelled to go 
through a medical college in their time, when in after years every 
medical college was obliged to learn of them, or the college go un- 
patronized. They say: “ These men may go to college if they have 
this natural genius.” That is easily enough said, but will they tell 
me when in the history of the world David would wear Saul’s armor 
when he went out to fight the giant? They will simply give up prac- 
tice if you pass this law, and we shall be deprived of their most valu- 
able services. Ido not plead for them. They do not need -us; we 
need them ! The man of genius always stands on the dignity of 
his God-given powers, and says to the world, what Edmund Burke 
said when he was finally shut out of Parliament: “Gentlemen, I can 
afford to get along without you, if you can without me.” It is the 
fifth-rate men who go down on their knees, crawling in the dust to get 
place and' power, as is amply illustrated in the little fifth-rate dpc- 
tors who ask for this monopoly for their benefit. Not one of the doc- 
tors the Old School calls “ quacks ” has appeared here asking you 
not to pass this Bill. • They can afford to stand back, as they have 
stood. But we, who wish their help, cannot afford to stand back and 
see our rights taken from us, not only the right to liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness, but the right to life; unless we can live in spite 
of all the poison that the old Allopath would pour down our throats, 
and charge us what he pleases for. 
The people do not want this Mil, therefore I pray you will not re- 
commend it!