MEDICAL FREEDOM NECESSARY FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS, MEDICAL TRUTH AND HUMAN SAFETY
As we now enjoy the great Democratic Institution of a Free Church in a Free State, with all church control of government and all compulsory or forced religion prohibited, so, in the near future, we must bring about an equally important reform for human welfare in preventing all medical control of our departments of government, in securing true medical freedom and prohibiting all compulsory medicine as effectually as all compulsory religion and church control of government is now prohibited. And as full freedom for all religious sects, in religious matters, has surely brought about an undoubted advance in religious progress and in true religion and morality throughout the world, so it is sure that full medical freedom will bring about a similar increase in true medical progress and efficiency throughout the world.
Now in this most important reform of Medical Freedom I want to say at this point that I hold no brief for any school of medicine or religion, but what I contend for, as an American citizen, is something broader, more inclusive, more American, and more important for public right, health and safety than any one religious or medical doctrine, and that is a full Medical Freedom for all the people to adopt any honest or sincere doctrine or system of medicine which they may prefer, and a free public field for the exercise of this doctrine or system without any harassment or oppression from any other system of medicine which may falsely and foolishly think itself specially ordained to control the whole field of medicine. And just as we now enjoy a full constitutional guarantee for Religious Freedom, which prevents any one sect from infringing on the conscientious liberty of another, so we must have a full Medical Freedom with an equal guarantee which will give all honest or reasonable medical doctrines free scope and prevent any medical doctrine or practice whatever from being forced on any person against free will and consent, and which will recognize the full right of the individual to adopt any preferred system of medical treatment, whether with or without prayer and faith, with or without drugs and medicines, or with or without vaccines or serums.
This broad medical freedom for all systems of medicine is absolutely necessary for true medical progress itself, for only by testing these different medical theories and practices side by side freely in every-day experience and on a wide scale can the real truth and virtue of any particular doctrine or practice be determined. A great modern doctor uttered a most important truth on this head when he said that “He is the best doctor who knows the uselessness and dangers of the greatest number of remedies.” And the best way of finding out the uselessness, danger or virtue of any remedies is to try them carefully and freely side by side. And this free use and disuse of alleged remedies side by side in contrast or competition will ultimately sift out and condemn whatever is really evil or useless more effectually and justly than any drastic compulsion or dogmatic suppression could possibly do, thus making the best and surest contribution to true medical progress, safety and efficiency.
On the same principle, if all compulsory vaccination is abolished and each person left free to adopt or refuse vaccination, as he sees fit—which is his positive legal right—a true test of the virtue and safety or uselessness and danger of general vaccination will soon be arrived at. And if it can be shown in such a large and free test that the unvaccinated part of the population or the unvaccinated part of the Army and Navy is no more liable, on the average, to catch smallpox or typhoid fever than the vaccinated part, and is entirely free from the grave dangers of vaccination itself, surely a great lesson in medical sanity and progress will be learned. As a matter of fact, this test has already proved in the case of the U. S. Army in France that typhoid vaccination is useless as a preventive where sanitation is grossly neglected. See pages 207 and 210. It has also proved in the case of poorly vaccinated but sanitary England and particularly in the unvaccinated and very sanitary City of Leicester, as compared with much vaccinated Japan, Germany and Berlin, that good sanitation, isolation and hygiene without vaccination give the best result in reducing and preventing smallpox in the population and also in greatly reducing the general death-rate and infant death-rate as compared to the same rates in the heavily vaccinated communities named. On this point see one of the latest medical works on this subject by a pro-vaccinator, “The Vaccination Question,” by Dr. Millard, London, 1914.
Now, as medical freedom is absolutely necessary for true medical progress, as just shown, so it is equally necessary for medical truth and human safety. At this point I am sure it will be readily admitted that even if an alleged medical remedy were absolutely effective and sure, and absolutely safe, harmless, and beneficial, it would not be ethically or legally proper to force it upon any patient against free will and consent. But when an alleged remedy is very uncertain, doubtful or irregular in its action, or very dangerous and frequently fatal in its effects, such as vaccination has been proved to be, surely the forcing of such a doubtful and dangerous remedy on any person under pretense of its necessity and harmlessness is not only unethical but it is a question whether this is not also a gross act of sheer criminal malpractice.
When, therefore, any doctor forces such a doubtful and dangerous remedy as vaccination upon any patient under the pretense that it is necessary for public health and is perfectly safe and harmless, the doctor is obviously under a most vicious moral and professional bias and interest to conceal, deny or falsify any unfavorable facts that may arise in the case, such as the failure of the alleged remedy or its injurious or possibly fatal effects on the patient, which bias and falsification is of course the greatest enemy to medical truth, safety and progress. And it is obvious that this concealment and denial of the injurious or fatal effects of medical remedies forced on the people by doctors is not only against true public policy but is a gross violation of true medical ethics and a crime upon the people in the falsification of this most important point of vital statistics, viz., the nature and effects of alleged medical remedies on human health and life, which facts should surely be fully disclosed to the public, not only for the sake of medical truth and progress but for the greater reason of human right and safety.
And it must be here remembered that our vaccinating doctors and our dominant vaccinating medical sect have now such full control of our death certificates, our departments of health and vital statistics that they can deny or conceal the effect of their medical operations with the greatest ease and safety, which is obviously a very sinister fact, against the most vital interest of the people, in public health, medical truth and safety and accurate vital statistics, and this evil surely calls for an immediate reform.
On the other hand, where medical practice is perfectly free and voluntary, the practitioner has no bias or interest whatever to make false claims of alleged efficiency or to conceal facts as to failures, dangers and fatalities, so that it is therefore obvious that for both medical truth and progress and human right and safety, Medical Freedom is an absolute public necessity, and that, per contra, Medical Compulsion is a most dangerous public evil which must be abolished as completely as the less dangerous evil of religious compulsion has been abolished.