Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 23

154:24 That mother is not a Christian Scientist, and her affec- tions need better guidance, who says to her child: "You look sick," "You look tired," "You need rest," or "You 154:27 need medicine."

Such a mother runs to her little one, who thinks she has hurt her face by falling on the carpet, and says, moaning 154:30 more childishly than her child, "Mamma knows you are hurt." The better and more successful method for any mother to adopt is to say: "Oh, never mind! You're not 155:1 hurt, so don't think you are." Presently the child forgets all about the accident, and is at play.

Drug-power mental

155:3 When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which heals; and according to this faith will the effect 155:6 be. Even when you take away the individual confidence in the drug, you have not yet divorced the drug from the general faith. The chemist, the botanist, the 155:9 druggist, the doctor, and the nurse equip the medicine with their faith, and the beliefs which are in the majority rule. When the general belief endorses the inanimate 155:12 drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, un- less it rests on Science, is but a belief held by a minority, and such a belief is governed by the majority.

Belief in physics

155:15 The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This errone- ous general belief, which sustains medicine and 155:18 produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of 155:21 popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease. The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less 155:24 weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale. h.o.m.oeopathy diminishes the drug, but the potency of the medicine increases as the 155:27 drug disappears.

Nature of drugs

Vegetarianism, h.o.m.oeopathy, and hydropathy have diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to 155:30 disease, why lessen the antidote? If drugs are good things, is it safe to say that the less in quant.i.ty you have of them the better? If drugs 156:1 possess intrinsic virtues or intelligent curative qualities, these qualities must be mental. Who named drugs, and 156:3 what made them good or bad for mortals, beneficial or injurious?

Dropsy cured without drugs

A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into 156:6 my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient looked like a barrel. I prescribed 156:9 the fourth attenuation of _Argentum nitratum_ with occa- sional doses of a high attenuation of _Sulphuris_. She im- proved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the 156:12 ordinary theories of medical practice, and learning that her former physician had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an aggravation of symptoms from their 156:15 prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was unwilling to give up the medicine while she was re- covering. It then occurred to me to give her un- 156:18 medicated pellets and watch the result. I did so, and she continued to gain. Finally she said that she would give up her medicine for one day, and risk the 156:21 effects. After trying this, she informed me that she could get along two days without globules; but on the third day she again suffered, and was relieved by 156:24 taking them. She went on in this way, taking the unmedicated pellets, - and receiving occasional visits from me, - but employing no other means, and she was 156:27 cured.

A stately advance

Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the next stately step beyond h.o.m.oeopathy. In metaphysics, 156:30 matter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. h.o.m.oeopathy takes mental symptoms largely 157:1 into consideration in its diagnosis of disease. Christian Science deals wholly with the mental cause in judging and 157:3 destroying disease. It succeeds where h.o.m.oeopathy fails, solely because its one recognized Principle of healing is Mind, and the whole force of the mental element is em- 157:6 ployed through the Science of Mind, which never shares its rights with inanimate matter.

The modus of h.o.m.oeopathy

Christian Science exterminates the drug, and rests on 157:9 Mind alone as the curative Principle, acknowledging that the divine Mind has all power. h.o.m.oeopathy mentalizes a drug with such repet.i.tion of 157:12 thought-attenuations, that the drug becomes more like the human mind than the substratum of this so- called mind, which we call matter; and the drug's power 157:15 of action is proportionately increased.

Drugging unchristian

If drugs are part of G.o.d's creation, which (according to the narrative in Genesis) He p.r.o.nounced_ good_, then 157:18 drugs cannot be poisonous. If He could cre- ate drugs intrinsically bad, then they should never be used. If He creates drugs at all and designs 157:21 them for medical use, why did Jesus not employ them and recommend them for the treatment of disease?

Matter is not self-creative, for it is unintelligent. Erring 157:24 mortal mind confers the power which the drug seems to possess.

Narcotics quiet mortal mind, and so relieve the body; 157:27 but they leave both mind and body worse for this sub- mission. Christian Science impresses the entire corpore- ality, - namely, mind and body, - and brings out the 157:30 proof that Life is continuous and harmonious. Science both neutralizes error and destroys it. Mankind is the better for this spiritual and profound pathology.

Mythology and materia medica

158:1 It is recorded that the profession of medicine originated in idolatry with pagan priests, who besought the G.o.ds to 158:3 heal the sick and designated Apollo as "the G.o.d of medicine." He was supposed to have dic- tated the first prescription, according to the 158:6 "History of Four Thousand Years of Medicine." It is here noticeable that Apollo was also regarded as the sender of disease, "the G.o.d of pestilence." Hippocrates turned 158:9 from image-G.o.ds to vegetable and mineral drugs for heal- ing. This was deemed progress in medicine; but what we need is the truth which heals both mind and 158:12 body. The future history of material medicine may correspond with that of its material G.o.d, Apollo, who was banished from heaven and endured great sufferings 158:15 upon earth.

Footsteps to intemperance

Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid subst.i.tutes for the dignity and potency of divine Mind and its effi- 158:18 cacy to heal. It is pitiful to lead men into temptation through the byways of this wil- derness world, - to victimize the race with intoxicating 158:21 prescriptions for the sick, until mortal mind acquires an educated appet.i.te for strong drink, and men and women become loathsome sots.

Advancing degrees

158:24 Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on matter and so letting in matter's higher stra- 158:27 tum, mortal mind. h.o.m.oeopathy, a step in advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation 158:30 than the drug, is governing the pellet.

Effects of fear

A woman in the city of Lynn, Ma.s.sachusetts, was etherized and died in consequence, although her physi- 159:1 cians insisted that it would be unsafe to perform a needed surgical operation without the ether. After the autopsy, 159:3 her sister testified that the deceased protested against inhaling the ether and said it would kill her, but that she was compelled by her physicians to take 159:6 it. Her hands were held, and she was forced into sub- mission. The case was brought to trial. The evidence was found to be conclusive, and a verdict was returned that 159:9 death was occasioned, not by the ether, but by fear of inhaling it.

Mental conditions to be heeded

Is it skilful or scientific surgery to take no heed of men- 159:12 tal conditions and to treat the patient as if she were so much mindless matter, and as if matter were the only factor to be consulted? Had these 159:15 unscientific surgeons understood metaphysics, they would have considered the woman's state of mind, and not have risked such treatment. They would either 159:18 have allayed her fear or would have performed the opera- tion without ether.

The sequel proved that this Lynn woman died from 159:21 effects produced by mortal mind, and not from the disease or the operation.

False source of knowledge

The medical schools would learn the state of man 159:24 from matter instead of from Mind. They examine the lungs, tongue, and pulse to ascertain how much harmony, or health, matter is permit- 159:27 ting to matter, - how much pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form of matter.

159:30 Ignorant of the fact that a man's belief produces dis- ease and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician is liable to increase disease with his own mind, when he 160:1 should address himself to the work of destroying it through the power of the divine Mind.

160:3 The systems of physics act against metaphysics, and _vice versa_. When mortals forsake the material for the spiritual basis of action, drugs lose their healing force, 160:6 for they have no innate power. Unsupported by the faith reposed in it, the inanimate drug becomes powerless.

Obedient muscles

160:9 The motion of the arm is no more dependent upon the direction of mortal mind, than are the organic action and secretion of the viscera. When this so-called 160:12 mind quits the body, the heart becomes as tor- pid as the hand.

Anatomy and mind

Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves to convey the man- 160:15 date of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does anatomy say when the cords contract and be- come immovable? Has mortal mind ceased 160:18 speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent?

Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind in one instance and not in another, and become cramped 160:21 despite the mental protest?

Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are never so, - never capable of acting contrary to mental 160:24 direction. If muscles can cease to act and become rigid of their own preference, - be deformed or symmetrical, as they please or as disease directs, - they must be self- 160:27 directing. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mor- tal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from anatomy that muscle is not so governed?

Mind over matter

160:30 Is man a material fungus without Mind to help him? Is a stiff joint or a contracted muscle as much a result of law as the supple and 161:1 elastic condition of the healthy limb, and is G.o.d the lawgiver?

161:3 You say, "_I_ have burned my finger." This is an exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mor- tal mind, and not matter, burns it. Holy inspiration 161:6 has created states of mind which have been able to nullify the action of the flames, as in the Bible case of the three young Hebrew captives, cast into the Babylonian furnace; 161:9 while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous combustion.

Restrictive regulations

In 1880, Ma.s.sachusetts put her foot on a proposed 161:12 tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If her sister States follow this example in har- mony with our Const.i.tution and Bill of Rights, 161:15 they will do less violence to that immortal sentiment of the Declaration, "Man is endowed by his Maker with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 161:18 pursuit of happiness."

The oppressive state statutes touching medicine re- mind one of the words of the famous Madame Roland, 161:21 as she knelt before a statue of Liberty, erected near the guillotine: "Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

Metaphysics challenges physics

161:24 The ordinary pract.i.tioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case ac- cording to his physical diagnosis, would natu- 161:27 rally induce the very disease he is trying to cure, even if it were not already determined by mor- tal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if 161:30 this old cla.s.s of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees with his "adversary quickly," but upon different terms 162:1 than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees 162:3 only with health and challenges disease.

Truth an alterative

Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science 162:6 acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels hu- mors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores 162:9 carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.

Practical success

162:12 Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. The indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without 162:15 the conditions of matter and also without the false beliefs of a so-called material existence. Working out the rules of Science in practice, the author has re- 162:18 stored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease in their severest forms. Secretions have been changed, the structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been 162:21 elongated, ankylosed joints have been made supple, and carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions. I have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs, and 162:24 healthy organizations have been established where disease was organic. Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it heals what is called functional, for it requires 162:27 only a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule.