Why did Medical Licensing Boards prosecute Christian Scientists for practicing medicine during the 19th Century

Christian Scientists did not manipulate bodies. Instead, Christian Science had been described as a “medicoreligious hybrid” that combined physical well-being with religious beliefs. In 1875, Mary Baker Eddy published a book titled Science and Health. This widely read text started the Christian Science movement and created a unique example of faith healing in the United States. While Christian Science initially was perceived as simply another type of faith healing, over time it acquired notoriety and acclaim unusual for spiritual healing. During the 1880s and 1890s, the movement picked up steam and became a legitimate challenger to scientific medicine. By the 1890s, state courts and legislatures debated whether Christian Scientists practiced medicine under state licensing laws.

Despite widely exaggerated claims by members of the medical press that there were more than one million Christian Scientists practicing medicine in the United States in 1890s, it was likely that there were no more than fifty thousand Christian Scientists in the entire country. Additionally, few of these adherents worked as faith healers. Regulars, Homeopaths, and Eclectics were not overrun by a horde army of faith healers despite their repeated assertions to the contrary. Christian Science was a small religious community, but physicians were outraged by the religious beliefs espoused by Mary Baker Eddy and her adherents.

Christian Scientists dismissed the traditional remedies of Homeopathic, Eclectic, and Regular medicine. They also argued that Louis Pasteur’s germ theory was fabricated. Instead of medicine or physical manipulation to cure illnesses, Christian Scientists relied on religion and metaphysics. Historian Rennie Schoepflin argued that faith healers appealed to Progressive-era Americans because their central claim was that disease was caused by the “fallen human nature.” As the United States rapidly changed during the Gilded Age, many Americans were concerned that society was becoming increasingly immoral. Christian Science offered an intriguing alternative to people who were concerned about the constantly changing understanding of science and medicine. The central belief of Christian Scientists questioned whether physicians were even necessary. The dramatic shifts by the three major medical sects away from their traditional understanding of disease and to new theories such as germ theory also might have alienated Americans. Even if earlier medical practices were ineffective, patients might have found them more comforting than the new alternatives. Paradoxically, even though Christian Science rejected the existence of disease, patients paid Christian Scientists to cure their illnesses.

Just as Regulars had demonized Homeopaths and Eclectics in the past, licensed physicians from the three medical sects worked together and relentlessly attacked these new medical specialists. Licensing united the three sects against these new interlopers. While the sects still viewed medicine somewhat differently, their differences were not nearly as great as those between them and these new medical apostates. Additionally, Regulars, Eclectics, and Homeopaths dominated medical licensing, and they did not want these specialities to flourish unchallenged. Licensed physicians directed their state organizations to prosecute Osteopaths and Christian Scientists.

Christian Scientists were never able to acquire the same type of legislative protections for their practice rights as Osteopaths. Arguably, they did not need protection from medical licensing laws because state courts were less willing to rule that they practiced medicine. Unlike Osteopaths who did everything in their power to look, act, and behave like traditional doctors, Christian Scientists’ practices were dramatically different. As Osteopathic medical schools began to teach students about surgery and obstetrics during the first decade of the twentieth century, Christian Scientists still focused on religion and metaphysics. Osteopathy quickly began to adopt aspects of Regular medicine, and it was even wryly noted by a Regular medical journal that the American School of Osteopathy recommended a book list to its students where one-hundred-and-twelve of the one-hundred-and-eighteen books were written by Regulars. Even more problematic was that when Christian Scientists treated patients, they did not behave as doctors and their practices did not resemble traditional medical care. Even though Osteopaths did not utilize drugs, they physically performed active services such as manipulating limbs, joints, and muscles. The differences between the two specialities were stark.

Christian Scientists claimed “that the work of healing through Christian Science is accompanied by religious instruction or spiritual teaching which is calculated to destroy the foundation of disease.” Following Mary Baker Eddy’s teaching in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, they argued that Jesus “demonstrated the power of Christian Science to heal mortal minds and bodies.” Eddy believed that she rediscovered Christ’s healing powers after analyzing the Bible. Essentially, she contended that the “mind govern[ed] the body, not partially but wholly.” Christian Scientists stated it was a sin to take drugs to alleviate suffering or to cure a disease. Because the mind governed the body, medicines were unnecessary. Instead of medical treatment, Christian Scientists offered their patients a unified “system of medicine” and a “system of ethics” that promised a complete “system of healing.” Christian Scientists never pretended to be physicians because they believed that doctors were completely unnecessary.

Medical licensing authorities were concerned about the spread of Christian Science and began actively to prosecute them for violating licensing laws. Even though they did not behave like traditional physicians, Christian Scientists made it clear that their methods could cure human ailments. Like physicians, they also readily accepted payment for their services. Christian Scientists argued that their system of healing was as valid as any other, and defended themselves from overzealous licensing boards by alleging that any interference with them was a violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of religion. Clifford Smith, a judge and Christian Science advocate, argued that medical regulations discriminated against other healing practices “create[d] a monopoly, and in effect establish[ed] a state system of healing” that unfairly discriminated against Christian Scientists. State licensing boards in several states actively pursued Christian Scientists. Historian Rennie Schoelpflin combed through state courts records and identified several cases where Christian Scientists were prosecuted for practicing without a medical license. In most of the cases Schoelpflin found these practitioners were ultimately exonerated by lower level courts or appellate, but this was not universally true. Some states courts did find that Christian Scientists were practicing medicine.

Buswell stated that payment was not mandatory and he would “leave the question to them and God.” The expectation of a fee or a gratuity prevented Buswell’s actions from being classified as either “an act of worship” or “the performance of a religious duty,” according to the court. The court found that the payments were exchanged for services rendered. The court also found that Buswell believed that he was similar to a physician. The court was convinced that Buswell “engaged in treating physical ailments of others for compensation.”<ref>Buswell, 732.</i> It should be noted that the Nebraska Supreme Court found that both Osteopaths and Christian Scientists were practicing physicians and held an expansive notion of the “practice of medicine.”