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Herald of Health
The Herald of Health was an ANA publication from its beginnings. The following article
byTeresa Shippell N. D. is from the Herald of Health March 1953. Dr. Shippell was a lifelong
District of Columbia resident and practitioner of Naturopathy. She was a guardian of the
Naturopathic “principle” within the profession. She was instrumental in protecting naturopathy
from many divisive forces that would have rent it irretrievably. It is a story that virtually none
know, but will eventually be told. Most people know very little about the history of this healing
art, but one can be assured that many issues that are arising today in 2003 have been issues
in the past. This article discusses the same issues that are confronting the licensure of
naturopathyinvirtuallyeveryjurisdiction. ThelawintheDistrictofColumbiawrittenin1929was
one of the first laws to address Naturopathic nomenclature, scope of practice, credentialing,
academic requirements, professional equality and manyother issues. Please read it carefully,
while it merely alludes to factions and persons that had and are diluting the identity of the
profession, it is a trail that ultimately uncovers the entire truth of events. It is about medicine as
wellanditsrelentlessdrivetomakenaturopathymerelyanartifactofhistory.
"NEW DEFINITIONS AND QUEER TITLES"
EVERY little while some organization or some individual
somewhere around this earth comes up with a brand new
definition of Naturopathy. For some reason, many practitioners
believe that somewhere, somehow, they have stumbled upon
hidden facts regarding the scope of Naturopathy that heretofore
have escaped everybody else. Therefore, these inspired
gentlemensitthemselvesdownandattempttopaintthelily.
Some of these-new definitions that are concocted are
credible — many of them are well thought-out and a few have
features that deserve serious consideration. Others, however,
flauntnaturalhealingrideroughshodoverNaturopathicprinciples
and attempt to include in the treatments everything from
voodooismtomedicalandsurgicalpractice.
Teresa Shippell N. D.
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During the past few years many efforts have been made in communities
without Naturopathic legalization, to have Naturopaths licensed and, usually—and
also unfortunately—the proposed legislation includes a brand new stream-lined
definition of Naturopathy carved, trimmed and glamored-up to conform with the/
private longings and desires of the Naturopaths who sponsor the particular
legislation.
In some states, this type of spurious Naturopathy has actually been legalized.
In those localities you will find practitioners parading under the titles of Naturopathic
Physicians, Naturopathic Physicians and Surgeons and a variety of other "tacked
on" designations that have no place in Naturopathic philosophy. In those
communities the supposed Naturopaths may do anything from minor surgery to
hypodermic punchings. Such practice is not, and never will be, Naturopathy. The
title "Naturopath" is a cloak/used to cover treatments that fall in the trough
somewhere between Naturopathy and Medical Practice—treatments that are a
credit to neither.
But these new definitions for Naturopathy and these new appendixes attached
to the titles of Naturopathic practitioners come bobbing up all the time. Only lately,
in one state of the Union, a Naturopath has brought forward what he deems a
brilliant idea. He is not satisfied with subterfuges—he wants to go the whole hog.
Here is the exact language of his circular:
"The naturopathic association
has been collecting $l5.00, to
$25.00 as dues from members for
the past ten years and hasn't
accomplished a thing. With the
result they haven't any money now
to present a bill. The 'N.D.’, third
grade, bills they are presenting, like
the rest of the states, make a third
grade N.D. doctor, instead of a
class A, M.D. Naturopath. … The
Naturopath must be a Naturopathic
M. D. Then he will have the
confidence of the public.”
That is a good one—a Naturopathic M.D.! Just how the philosophies of these
two counter-healing professions can be welded into a smooth-running hybrid is
something that the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer and our old friend, Einstein,
would have to iron out. In the end, of course, such a mixed marriage would find the,
Naturopathic element non-existing and the poisons, drugs, and serums—with their
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nice, round professional fees—would be reigning supreme. A Naturopathic M.D.
indeed! This same enthusiast includes this phrase:
"So I need funds to get a legislator
interested in putting this bill
through.”
He needs a legislator! He needs far more than that. He needs a majority of
the legislators—a willing governor and a state medical association, which will stand
idly by while he makes all of his state Naturopathic practitioners into practicing
M.D.’s—without the necessity of having them undergo years of customary medical
training.
But the grandiose plan of this optimistic Naturopath is overshadowed by the
brainchild of a group of non-drug practitioners in a western state. These Pacific
Coast gentlemen not only want to make themselves into Naturopathic M.D’s,
P.D.Q.'s and R.S.V.P.'s but also would include in their practices any of therapy,
orthodox, unorthodox or just haywire that any of them, singly or in groups, might
believe would be “necessary to permit… the human body… to attain… well being.”
Each practitioner in this scheme seeks the right to judge without any qualification
whatsoever, just what is necessary to be done in any particular case—whether
such decision includes the removal of an organ, the chopping out of a cancer, the
administering of poison medicines or filling the victim's blood stream full of serums.
Here is the piece de résistance that this group of western Naturopaths have settled
upon as an acceptable scope for their practices and as what they want their local
legislature to adopt as the legal definition of Naturopathy. Read the following care-
fully—because it demonstrates just how far off the Naturopathic beam a bunch of
Naturopaths can go when they are thinking in terms of prospective fees and not the
natural alleviation of the ills of suffering humanity.
“For the purpose of this act,
Naturopathy is defined as a,
system of therapeutics which is
based the concept that the
promotion, maintenance, the
restoration of human health are
dependent upon employing any
and all means and methods
necessary to permit the inherent
compensatory and recuperative
forces of the human body to attain
and perpetuate anatomical,
physiological and psychological
well being,"
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We have seen many definitions of Naturopathy but none of them have equaled
this. Of course, it is not a definition of Naturopathy at all! It is not intended to be. It
has been put forward merely as a blind to enable these particular doctors to
practice a kind of healing —medical and surgical—for which they manifestly are not
trained. In no curriculum of any standard naturopathic college will you find the
studies qualify a student as a medical man or a surgeon. Let us look at that
proposed definition again. Let us change a single word —"Naturopathy"— to —
“Medical Science" and see how it reads:
“For the purpose of this act.
Medical Science is defined etc.,
etc."
Make the substitution and see if the results are not the same. No, this in no
sense is a definition of Naturopathy. It is a collection of words that would permit
incompetent practitioners to do as they pleased — and the public be damned.
Of course, it goes without saying, that this wide open, all-inclusive definition of
supposed Naturopathy will never become official in any commonwealth in any
civilized country. If some legislator can be induced to put forward a bill for licensing
Naturopaths with this definition as a part of such proposed legislation, the measure
luckily would never "get out of committee". The legislative members of such a
committee would see that such a definition—with its absolutely unlimited powers-
would be against public policy. The situation covering the correct definition of
Naturopathy comes down to this: there is in the archives of the United States, in the
Congressional Record, a complete description of just what this healing art
embraces. This definition was not thrown together for expediency—it was not
conceived as a cloak to permit Naturopaths to be under-cover medical men and
surgeons. It was carefully and painstakingly worked out by the Naturopathic
pioneers of this country who had but one desire—to set forth the limits of
Naturopath, based on its true principles and philosophy. These oldsters worked
many weeks to bring the wording down to simple and understandable language,
before the manuscript was finally turned over to the Honorable Katherine G.
Langley, a member of the House of Representatives, to be presented to the people
of the United States as a finished and complete pronouncement of the scope and
limits of this centuries old healing art. That definition has never been improved—
and it never will be.
"Naturopathy is thephilosophy ofhealing basing its treatment of all physiological functions
and abnormal conditions of the body on the natural laws governing the body. The success of
naturopathyisduetothefactthattheydonotrelyononemethodoftreatmentbutmustinclude
in their work all that is good in the different systems of natural healing. Naturopathy as
approved in aforesaid act, February 27, 1929. Hereafter shall comprehend and embrace and
be composed of the following acts and practices and usages of the physiological and
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mechanical and material sciences of healing, as follows: Iridology, diagnosis, and the practice
of physiological, mechanical, and material sciences of healing; the physiological and
mechanical sciences, such as the mechano-therapy, articular manipulation, corrective and
orthopedic gymnastics. neurotherapy. psychotherapy, hydrotherapy and mineral baths,
electrotherapy, thermotherapy, radiotherapy, phototherapy, chromotherapy. vibrotherapy,
thalamotherapy, and orificial dilatation andotherstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system
through the orifices, and dietetics, which shall include the use of foods of such biochemical
tissue-building products and cell salts as are found in the normal body; and the use of vegetal
oils and dehydrated and pulverized fruits, flowers. seeds, barks, herbs, roots, and vegetables
uncompoundedandusedintheirnaturalstate."
It certainly is time a National Naturopathic Steering Committee be established
in Washington, D.C. to coordinate the activities of all state legislative groups and
thus bar out the ridiculous bills that are presented for enactment each year.
Note to Gov. Kempthorne:
The following suggestion was not implemented till approximately
1990, when Dr. Freibott succeeded in the reissuing of Naturopathic
licensing/registration in Washington, DC. He currently holds the No.2
Registration in DC. It was his influence to Mayor Sharon Pratt
Kelley’s Office in DC that accomplished this.
