Vol. V. Eclectic Medical Journal SEPTEMBER, 1912 No. 8 ✔ Original Contributions ✔ OUR FIGHT FOR EXISTENCE AS A SEPARATE SCHOOL H. C. Smith, M. D., Los Angeles. (Read before the Los Angeles County Eclectic Medical Society) We seriously and justifiedly contend that the American Medical Association political machine is exerting every effort to legislate us-as a separate school of medicine-out of existence. Our State and County Societies have aligned themselves with the National League for Medical Freedom in an effort to avert extinction. We read in a medical journal for June, 1912, (of the reg ular persuasion but opposed to the A. M. A. Machine), the following: "An indication that sectarianism in medicine is rapidly giving way to a harmony of scientific spirit and therapeutic endeavor, is the fact that there are at present remaining only twelve homeopathic medical schools, and seven eclectic colleges." As eclectics we are in harmony with the scientific spirit and have led for over a third of a century in therapeutic endeavor; and while we ascribe various reasons for the bigotry and intolerance of the leaders of the A. M. A., we wonder why the rank and file of the regular profession refuse to place a proper value upon our system of therapeutics. That there is a great deal of bigotry and intolerance exhibited by the regular profession I am free to admit, but my personal experience compels me to believe that a large percentage of the members of that school are not antagonistic, but merely cannot see wherein we have any particularly just claims to an existence as a separate and distinct school of medicine; and are honest in their beliefs. Those having no personal knowledge of our remedies and their successful administration, accept the dictum of the Council of Pharmacy and Chemistry of the A. M. A.-that the agents are valueless-and let it go at that. Many others, seeing our success, but understanding nothing of the underlying principles of eclectic practice, i. e., specific diagnosis and specific medication-cannot understand why we should be sectarian, instead of joining the regular ranks and becoming simply a "physician" so that by some hocuc pocus a knowledge of our practice should be imparted to that great body. In view of the training they have had, and of the fact that they have had no training in our fundamental principles, and that their ideas of them, at best, are very vague, it is not at all surprising that it is a difficult task to elucidate our system of practice and convince them that we have something of value independent of, or rather, additional to "regular, scientific" medicine. Most of us will heartily endorse the following, which is the opening paragraph of an address by Dr. Geo. A. Doss to the Georgia Eclectic Medical Association, and reported in the N.E.M.A. Quarterly for June, 1912. He says: "The advancement of science, so far as it concerns medicinal agents and the successful combatment of diseased conditions, is due almost wholly to specific diagnosis and specific medication." Many such expressions may be found in our literature if searched for by friendly eyes; but the members of the old school are not viewing us, or our literature, with friendly eyes, but with those of either indifference, or for the purpose of finding words wherewith to condemn us out of our own mouths. To show that they can find them I shall first quote from an article in the May, 1912, number of Ellingwood's Therapeutist. Dr. Eli G. Jones has this to say: "One writer has said that 'Specific Medication is Eclecticism, that Eclecticism is specific medication.' If so, then I am not an Eclectic and could not be, for the very meaning of the name Eclectic would condemn any doctor, who claims to practice specific medication, and discards all other medication." If there is anything about the practice of specific medication that demands the discarding of anything of therapeutic value, I am unaware of it. He further says: "The word, eclectic, comes to us from the Greek language, lego, to select, ek, out of. To follow any system of therapeutics and call that eclectic is to make ourselves ridiculous in the mind of any Greek scholar, of anyone who knows the meaning of the word eclectic." Thus implying, I suppose, that we can only be eclectics by practicing without any system, which, if true, would stamp the vast majority of regular practicians as eclectics. But he goes on to state a truth, when he accuses the Eclectic school of ignoring; but which I assert, with an abundance of literature to sustain me, the eclectics above all others have endeavored to adhere to, and thus take direct issue with him. He says: "To be an Eclectic in the purest sense of the word, is to be a physician, a broadminded, liberal man, one who knows the whole realm of drug action. Such men become a mighty power for good in their profession, because they have resources to draw upon, that no other physician has. . . . Such men are making their influence felt, and the people turn to them when they are sick, because they cure their patients. If the Eclectic School of Medicine had adopted this plan and held to it for the past seventy-five years (which we claim they have) they would have led all other schools of medicine. But they were sidetracked by that incubus, the thing they call specific medication. The word specific grafted on the therapeutics of the Eclectic school of medicine has done more to condemn the school than all else. It is a word that comes from the old school. They are notorious for hunting for specifics. I have no use for that word in my vocabulary; neither has any doctor who knows materia medica." In this same line he says: "A gain of 2000 in 53 years. What has checked the growth of this system of medicine? There are various reasons, but one stands out more prominent than all the rest because we have discarded some of the most valuable remedies in the materia medica of the different schools of medicine and followed the teachings, the dogma of one man, the author of specific medication. "A school of medicine that might have been the grandest, the most powerful for good on the American continent, has narrowed down to one man's system of therapeutics." There is nothing in eclecticism that teaches us to discard any remedy of therapeutic value, and has not been since the early fathers of the school in their disgust at the abuse of Mercury and Antimony, went to the opposite extreme and advised against their use, at all; unless we consider the attitude of many eclectics toward serum and vaccine, therapy, which is shared by Dr. Jones. His animus against the founder of specific medication has caused him to ignore the rationality of the system and the absurdity of his opposition for aside from the fact that Webster uses the word specific in that |