Restrictions on Unorthodox Health Treatment in California: A Legal and Economic Analysis
![handle is hein.journals/uclalr24 and id is 661 raw text is: RESTRICTIONS ON UNORTHODOX HEALTH
TREATMENT IN CALIFORNIA: A LEGAL
AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny
equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medi-
cal practice. . . . The Constitution of this Republic should
make special provision for Medical Freedom as well as Reli-
gious Freedom.'
INTRODUCTION
A correlative of the waning faith in the medical profession
evidenced by the medical malpractice crisis2 is the recent revival
of unorthodox methods of health treatment.3 This growing inter-
est in health treatments not taught in medical school, however,
is primarily limited to the level of the theoretical. Individuals
attempting to practice unconventional health treatments face legal
barriers which effectively discourage all but the most determined.
Unorthodox health treatments4 exist in many forms, including
naturopathy,5 magnetic healing,6 hypnotism, herbalism and vita-
l Benjamin Rush, Surgeon General of the Continental Army and signer
of the Declaration of Independence, quoted in B. INGLIS, THE CASE FOR UNORTHO-
Dox MEDIcINE 5 (1965).
2 See, e.g., Malpractice Nightmare, TIME, Mar. 24, 1975, at 62-63;
Rubsamen, Medical Malpractice, Sci. AM., Aug. 1976, at 18-23.
3 Fundamentally, the distinction between orthodox and fringe medicine
today is that orthodox treatment relies mainly on fighting disease with
the help of drugs or surgery, whereas unorthodox treatment concen-
trates on stimulating the patient's constitution to fight on its own be-
half, on the assumption that this is safer and more effective. . . . Man
has built-in recuperative powers which can be seen at work when a cut
heals into a scar, without attention; and this process, all fringe practi-
tioners agree, can be speeded up, sometimes to an astonishing degree,
by suitable stimuli. They believe that . . . it is the practitioner's task
to hasten the mobilization of our own healing powers.
B. INGLIS, supra note 1, at 297.
4 See generally id. at 15-64; H. KRUGER, OTHER HEALERS, OTHER CURES Xii-
xiii, 1-13 (1974). For an interesting instance of a professional athlete turning
to fringe medicine, see Chapin, Roche Finds Unusual Cure: He Had Nothing
to Lose Except Pain in His Arm, L.A. Times, July 13, 1975, § 3, at 11, col. 4.
Chapin reports that Tony Roche, having given up professional tennis in 1973 due to
tennis elbow, traveled to the Phillipines to patronize a psychic surgeon. The
healer allegedly opened Roche's arm, removed three blood clots and resealed the
wound without instruments, after which Roche was able to return to an outstand-
ing professional career.
5 Naturopathy is defined as '[n]ature cure or health by natural meth-
ods.' Davis v. Beeler, 185 Tenn. 638, 642, 207 S.W.2d 343, 345 (1947),
appeal dismissed, 333 U.S. 859 (1948). See note 37 infra.
6 Magnetic healing is defined and discussed in 70 C.J.S. Physicians and](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/uclalr24&div=32&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Restrictions on Unorthodox Health Treatment in California: A Legal and Economic Analysis
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