Article #1: Is Medicine a Fraud? by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

A few years ago Dr. Hutchinson, consulting physician to the London Hospital, lectured at Aberdeen University on "The Progress and Present Aspect of Medical Science." The lecture was published in the British Medical Journal. In this lecture Dr. Hutchinson said:

"So few are the diseases that we can really cure, that one is tempted to believe that if all the doctors went on strike for a year the effect on the death rate would be inappreciable. In most cases of illness the doctor is really a mental poultice; he is a source of comfort, confidence, and consolation to the patient and his friends; but if he is honest with himself he will admit that the number of patients who would have died but for his attendance is lamentably small."

Does this honest confession not brand the practice of medicine as a gigantic fraud and its practitioners as a gang of swindlers? Was anything I ever said about medicine a stronger condemnation of the practice than this coming from one of its honored members? Does Dr. Hutchinson, in the above statement, not, in effect, at least, accuse the members of his profession of accepting money under false pretenses?