Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing Part 20

Professor Onymus, of the University of Wurzburg, reported a number of cases cured by Prince Hohenlohe, which he himself witnessed. He gives the following:

"Captain Ruthlein, an old gentleman of Thundorf, 70 years of age, who had long been p.r.o.nounced incurable of paralysis, which kept his hand clenched, and who had not left his room for many years, has been perfectly cured.

Eight days after his cure he paid me a visit, rejoicing in the happiness of being able to walk freely.

"A man, of about 50, named Bramdel, caused himself to be carried by six men from Carlstadt to the Court at Stauffenburg. His arms and legs were utterly paralyzed, hanging like those of a dead man, and his face was of a corpse-like pallor. On the prayer of the Prince he was instantly cured, rose to his feet, and walked perfectly, to the profound astonishment of all present.

"A student of Burglauer, near Murmerstadt, had lost for two years the use of his legs; he was brought in a carriage, and though he was only partially relieved by the first and second prayer of the Prince, at the third he found himself perfectly well.

"These cures are real and they are permanent. If any one would excite doubts of the genuineness of the cases operated by Prince Hohenlohe, it is only necessary to come hither and consult a thousand other eye and ear witnesses like myself. Every one is ready to give all possible information about them."[196]

The Mormons, under the leadership of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844), were healing the sick about the time that Prince Hohenlohe was performing his miracles on the other side of the water. Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont. The Mormon Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) was founded in 1830 in Palmyra, New York, and moved from there to Kirkland, Ohio; Independence, Missouri; Nauvoo, Illinois; and thence to Utah. Smith was successively first elder, prophet, seer, and revelator. The year the church was founded Smith began his healing career as an exorcist, casting the devil out of Newel Knight in Colesville, New York. Following this, there was a firm belief in demoniacal possession, and exorcism was practised by both Smith and his followers, princ.i.p.ally by means of command. This exorcism led up to faith healing.

Smith's maternal uncle, Jason Mack, was a firm believer in healing by prayer and practised it; later, the Oneida Community of Perfectionists in western New York cured by faith; both of these facts would be known to the founder of Mormonism. After adopting faith healing he soon became proficient in the art. Numerous well-attested cures were performed by Smith and his followers in other places. Elder Richards advertised in England "Bones set through Faith in Christ," and Elder Phillips made the additional statement that "while commanding the bones, they came together, making a noise like the crushing of an old basket." All forms of disease were treated, but not always successfully, as may be inferred from Smith's own words: "The cholera burst forth among us, even those on guard fell to the earth with their guns in their hands.... At the commencement I attempted to lay on hands for their recovery, but I quickly learned by painful experience, that when the great Jehovah decrees destruction upon any people, makes known His determination, man must not attempt to stay his hand." The means employed varied, but included at different times prayer, command, laying on of hands, consecrated handkerchiefs and other cloths, baptism, and infrequently anointing.[197]

Crossing the ocean again, we find Johann Christolph Blumhardt (1805-1880) performing wonderful acts of healing. He a.s.sumed his first independent charge in 1838 when he became pastor of the village church at Moettlinger, Wurtemberg. He was known afterward as Pastor Blumhardt. Among his parishioners was Gottliebin Ditters, generally thought to be possessed by an evil spirit. After two years prayer and care for this woman, he saw her restored to peace of mind. This was the beginning of a life of faith in the efficacy of prayer for healing. After the restoration of Gottliebin a spontaneous and entirely unexpected revival took place in Moettlinger. Mult.i.tudes came from afar to hear this sincere man preach his simple sermons, and in many cases bodily disease left those who confessed and upon whom Blumhardt laid his hands. It became noised about that those who repented, with whom the pastor prayed and upon whom he laid his hands, would be healed. "One morning a mother rushed to his house, saying that she had by an accident scalded her child with boiling soup. The infant was found screaming with agony. He took the child in his arms, prayed over it, and it grew quiet. It had no further pain, and the effects of the scalding were quickly gone. Another child was nearly blind with disease. A neighboring pastor, when consulted, said to the parents: 'If you believe Jesus can and will heal your child, by all means go to Blumhardt, but if you have not got the faith, don't do it on any account; let an operation be performed.' 'Well, we have faith,'

they said, and went to Blumhardt. Three days after it was perfectly well." These events could not fail to attract attention, and miracles or healings from his prayers were of constant occurrence. In 1852 Blumhardt moved to Boll, Wurtemberg, and until his death he continued his healing. He did not despise human means of healing, but he stoutly held that Jesus would answer the prayer of faith uttered for and by the sick.

About the middle of the century Father Mathew (1790-1856) attracted a large number of persons who were in need of healing. He was best known as the famous apostle of temperance, and was to Ireland in the nineteenth century what Wesley was to England in the eighteenth. He also travelled over England and Scotland and spent two years in America. In one period of nine months he induced two hundred thousand persons to take the temperance pledge. Among other things he cured blindness, lameness, paralysis, hysteria, headache, and lunacy. After his death the same diseases which he had cured during his lifetime were just as effectively relieved by visiting the good father's tomb, in the firm belief that a miracle would be performed. From the following cure, his first one, it will be seen that the discovery of his healing power was rather accidental.

"A young lady, of position and intelligence, was for years the victim of the most violent headaches, which a.s.sumed a chronic character. Eminent advice was had but in vain; the malady became more intense, the agony more excruciating. Starting up one day from the sofa on which she lay in a delirium of pain, she exclaimed--'I cannot endure this torture any longer; I will go and see what Father Mathew can do for me.' She immediately proceeded to Lehanagh, where Father Mathew was then sick and feeble. Flinging herself on her knees before him she besought his prayers and blessing. In fact, stung by intolerable suffering she asked him to cure her. 'My dear child, you ask me what no mortal has power to do.

The power to cure rests alone with G.o.d. I have no such power.' 'Then bless me, and pray for me--place your hand on my head,' implored the afflicted lady. 'I cannot refuse to pray for you, or to bless you,' said Father Mathew, who did pray for and bless her, and place his hand upon her poor throbbing brow. Was it faith?--was it magnetism?--was it the force of imagination exerted wonderfully? I shall not venture to p.r.o.nounce what it was; but that lady returned to her home perfectly cured of her distressing malady. More than that--cured completely, from that moment, forward."[198]

About the same time, Mrs. Elizabeth Mix, a negro woman living in Connecticut, achieved great fame through her healing by prayer. Many testified to the efficacy of her prayers and bewailed her death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE O. BARNES]

Francis Schlatter (1856-1909) was a native of Alsace, France. He was born a Roman Catholic and, so far as he was affiliated with any denomination, always remained one. When a year old, he was blind and deaf and was cured by his mother's prayers. He came to America in 1891, and first settled at Jamestown, Long Island. Early in 1893 he moved to Denver, Colorado, and in the following July he felt impelled by inner promptings to start out, he knew not whither. Probably mentally unbalanced, he wandered through the wilderness of the great Southwest without shoes or hat. Fasts, temptations, visions, arrests and imprisonments, and healings combined to furnish his experience during these wanderings, always, as he said, being led by the Father.

In July, 1895, he arrived at Las Lunas, New Mexico, where he first attracted public attention as a healer. From here he went to Albuquerque, where he treated as many as six hundred persons in a day, many very effectively. After forty days' fast, which was broken by a hearty meal of solid food, he went to Denver and here reached the pinnacle of his fame and success. At the home of a sympathizer, daily from 9 A. M. to 4 P. M., he treated those who came to him, always without any remuneration. From two thousand to five thousand people would congregate in line, reaching nearly around a city block, five or six abreast, but he was never able to treat more than two thousand in a day. Crowds came from other cities, and some few from great distances, even the New England States. He stood inside a fence, and as each one came along he held the patient's hand for a short time; lifting up his eyes, he prayed and then a.s.sured the sufferer of relief within a certain time. Through the mail and in other ways he received handkerchiefs which he blessed and returned with a.s.surance of relief through them. Not all cases handled were restored to health or even noticeably eased, but large numbers testified to cures, some of which came immediately and others by degrees. He did not preach.

Although he never claimed it, when asked, "Are you the Christ?" he always replied, "I am." He wore a beard and long hair, and dressed in the plainest clothes. In appearance he looked not unlike the pictures of the traditional Christ. Afterward he appeared in different parts of the United States, but never with the same success in healing as in Denver.[199]

The once famous Dr. Newton arrived in Boston in 1859 on one of his visits, and caused an extraordinary sensation. Astonishing results were reported in the way of cures. The lame, having no further need of crutches, left them behind; the blind were cured, and several chronic cases were relieved. He had many followers and disciples among whom was "Dr." Bryant, who settled in Detroit and healed there. Rev. J. M.

Buckley, D.D., met Dr. Newton on a Mississippi steam-boat, when the latter was returning from Havana with his daughter who was very low with consumption, and the father doubted if she would reach home alive. When asked "Doctor, why could you not heal her?" he replied "It seems as if we cannot always affect our own kindred." At this time he denounced his pupil, Dr. Bryant, as an "unmitigated fraud who had no genuine healing power."

"If Bryant be an unmitigated fraud, how do you account for the cures which he makes?" asked Dr. Buckley.

"Oh!" said the doctor, "they are caused by the faith of the people and the concentration of their minds upon his operations with the expectation of being cured. Now,"

said he, "n.o.body would go to see Bryant unless they had some faith that he might cure them, and when he begins his operations with great positiveness of manner, and when they see the crutches he has there, and hear the people testify that they have been cured, it produces a tremendous influence on them; and then he gets them started in the way of exercising, and they do a good many things that they thought they could not do; their appet.i.tes and spirits revive, and if toning them up can possibly reduce the diseased tendency, many of them will get well."

Said Dr. Buckley: "Doctor, pardon me, is not that a correct account of the manner in which you perform your wonderful works?"

"Oh, no," said he; "the difference between a genuine healer and a quack like Bryant is as wide as the poles."[200]

Father John of Cronstadt (1829-1908) was a saintly man, and furnishes us with an example of the healers among the Orthodox Church of the East. He was famed in all Russia for his sanct.i.ty, and was so thronged by crowds for his healing power that he often had to escape by side doors after celebrating the communion. His cures were many, but I choose his own account of one as an example.

"A certain person who was sick unto death from inflammation of the bowels for nine days, without having obtained the slightest relief from medical aid, as soon as he had communicated of the Holy Sacrament, upon the morning of the ninth day, regained his health and rose from his bed of sickness in the evening of the same day.

He received the Holy Communion with firm faith. I prayed to the Lord to cure him. 'Lord,' said I, 'heal thy servant of his sickness. He is worthy, therefore grant him this. He loves thy priests and sends them his gifts.' I also prayed for him in church before the altar of the Lord, at the Liturgy, during the prayer: 'Thou who hast given us grace at this time, with one accord to make our common supplication unto thee,' and before the Holy Mysteries themselves. I prayed in the following words: 'Lord, our life! It is as easy for thee to cure every malady as it is for me to think of healing. It is as easy for thee to raise every man from the dead as it is for me to think of the possibility of the resurrection of the dead. Cure, then, thy servant Basil of his cruel malady, and do not let him die; do not let his wife and children be given up to weeping.' And the Lord graciously heard, and had mercy upon him, although he was within a hair's breadth of death. Glory to thine omnipotence and mercy, that thou, Lord, hast vouchsafed to hear me!"[201]

For the past century and a half healing has been carried on among the Pennsylvania Germans by means of a superst.i.tious practice known as "Pow-wow." A book called _The Sixth Book of Moses, or Black Art_ is said to be the basis of the practice. The pract.i.tioners are usually women of the most ignorant, degraded, and, not infrequently, immoral cla.s.s, and in harmony with this, a firm belief in witchcraft is entertained by them. Notwithstanding this, they are employed at times by intelligent and respectable people, even by those whose standing in the community might well guarantee a disbelief in such incantations.

The healers treat for burns, erysipelas and all skin diseases, goitre, tumors, rheumatism, and some other similar troubles. They have different formulas for the various diseases, and the belief is current that if a healer should reveal the formula to her own s.e.x, she would lose her power, and if she told more than one of the opposite s.e.x, the power would be taken from her. The following is the method of operating for burns:

"Take a piece of red woolen yarn and wrap it into the shape of a ball. Pa.s.s it slowly around the burn and while doing so, repeat three times, 'The fire burneth, water quencheth, the pain ceaseth.' After which reverse the movement and repeat the words again three times.

Then take the yarn upstairs, pull out the chimney-stop, put the yarn in the chimney, and as soon as it disappears the burn is healed."

There have been a number of cases of local healers and I give two examples: "At the time of the prevalence of cholera in Canada, a man named Ayers, who came out of the States, and was said to be a graduate of the University of New Jersey, was given out to be St. Roche, the princ.i.p.al patron saint of the Canadians, and renowned for his power in averting pestilential diseases. He was reported to have descended from heaven to cure his suffering people of the cholera, and many were the cases in which he appeared to afford relief. Many were thus dispossessed of their fright in antic.i.p.ation of the disease, who might, probably, but for his inspiriting influence, have fallen victims to their apprehensions. The remedy he employed was an admixture of maple sugar, charcoal, and lard."[202]

"The _Month_ for June, 1892, published an account, by the late Earl of Denbigh, of a cure worked by a member of a family named Cancelli of Lady Denbigh in 1850. She was suffering severely from rheumatism, and the Pope (Pius IX) mentioned to the Earl that near Foligno there was a family of peasants who were credited with a miraculous power of curing rheumatic disorders. Lord Denbigh succeeded in getting one of the family, an old man, to come, and learned from him the legend of the cure. The belief was that in the reign of Nero, the Apostles Peter and Paul took refuge in the hut of an old couple named Cancelli, near Foligno, and, as a proof of grat.i.tude, gave to the male descendants of the family living near the spot the power of curing rheumatic disorders to the end of time. Lord Denbigh described how the old man made a solemn invocation, using the sign of the cross, and, in fact, Lady Denbigh did recover at once. In a few days the pains returned, but she made an act of resignation, and they then left her, and never returned with any acuteness."[203]

What we may designate "Metaphysical Healing" originated with Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866). The movement was important, not so much on account of what Quimby himself was able to accomplish by it, as because of the work that has been carried on since by at least three of his pupils. He was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and in early life was a watch and clock maker. In 1840 he began experimenting with mesmerism, and accounts of these experiments were published in the Maine papers of that time. After this he developed a system of mental healing of his own, practising it in different towns in Maine for some years. About 1858 he settled as a pract.i.tioner in Portland and remained there until his death. I shall quote brief extracts in his own words, which portray his system.

"My practice is unlike all medical practice. I give no medicine, and make no outward applications. I tell the patient his troubles, and what he thinks is his disease; and my explanation is the cure. If I succeed in correcting his errors, I change the fluids of the system and establish the truth, or health. The truth is the cure. This mode of practice applies to all cases."

"The greatest evil that follows taking an opinion for a truth is disease."

"Man is made up of truth and belief; and, if he is deceived into a belief that he has, or is liable to have, a disease, the belief is catching, and the effect follows it."

"Disease being made by our belief, or by our parents'

belief, or by public opinion, there is no formula to be adopted, but every one must be reached in his particular case. Therefore it requires great shrewdness or wisdom to get the better of the error. Disease is our error and the work of the devil."[204]

Quimby made many wonderful and mostly speedy cures, and although he wrote out his system, it has never been published. Among his patients was Mrs. Patterson from Hill, New Hampshire, who went to Portland in 1862. She had been a confirmed invalid for six years. To quote her own words, published in the _Portland Evening Courier_ in 1862, she made a rapid recovery. "Three weeks since I quitted my nurse and sick room en route for Portland. The belief of my recovery had died out of the hearts of those who were most anxious for it. With this mental and physical depression I first visited P. P. Quimby, and in less than one week from that time I ascended by a stairway of one hundred and eighty-two steps to the dome of the City Hall, and am improving _ad infinitum_. To the most subtle reasoning, such a proof, coupled, too, as it is with numberless similar ones, demonstrates his power to heal." Mrs. Patterson, afterward Mrs. Eddy, proclaimed after his death a doctrine very similar to Quimby's. She called it "Christian Science," a name Quimby applied to his teaching, although usually he called it "Science of Health."

Another patient of Quimby's was Julius A. Dresser, who visited him first in 1860. Of him Mr. Dresser says: "The first person in this age who penetrated the depths of truth so far as to discover and bring forth a true science of life, and publicly apply it to the healing of the sick, was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby of Belfast, Me."

Rev. W. F. Evans was still another patient and disciple of Quimby's.

His testimony is as follows: "Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure the disease.... The late Dr.

Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the nature of disease, and by a long succession of most remarkable cures ... proved the truth of the theory.... Had he lived in a remote age or country, the wonderful facts which occurred in his practice would have now been deemed either mythical or miraculous."

These three, Messrs. Evans and Dresser and Mrs. Eddy, proved to be Quimby's most famous patients and disciples. Evans became a noted and voluminous writer on mental healing, Mr. Dresser has been identified with the New Thought movement of which his son H. W. Dresser is probably the best exponent, and Mrs. Eddy ruled the Christian Scientists with a rod of iron.

Warren F. Evans visited Quimby twice in the year 1863, and at these times obtained his knowledge of Quimby's methods. Up to this time he had been a Swedenborgian clergyman, and his beliefs enabled him the better to grasp the new doctrines. On the occasion of the second visit he told his healer that he thought he could cure the sick in this way, and Quimby agreed with him. On returning home he tried it, and his first attempts were so successful that he became a pract.i.tioner, using only mental means, and continued in this work. He wrote several books on the subject of mental healing, the first one, _The Mental Cure_, appearing in 1869, six years before Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health_.

Perhaps, strictly speaking, the New Thought movement does not come within the scope of our subject, except as we see in it an outgrowth and application of the Quimby doctrine, for two reasons. In the first place, its purpose is mental hygiene rather than cure, and it is all the more valuable for that. Of course, in establishing hygienic practices many disorders are cured, but prevention is the main feature. The second reason why we might perhaps not include it in a resume of the healers is that it is intended to be for the use of the individual to prevent his employing a healer of any kind. The same objection, however, would do away to some extent with a discussion of Christian Science. The principles of New Thought are that the mind has an influence on the body, and that good, sweet, pure thoughts have a salutary effect, but the opposite ones injure the body. Don't worry, don't think of disease, don't look for trouble, but fill the mind with the opposite positive thoughts and life will be happy and the body will be well. The doctrines are expounded differently by the various leaders, and emphasis is laid on different points, some emphasizing more fully the religious aspects of the movement, for example. The princ.i.p.al writers on the subject are H. W. Dresser, R. W.

Trine, H. Wood, and H. Fletcher.

Mrs. Mary A. Morse Baker Glover Patterson Eddy (1821-1910) was born at Bow, New Hampshire. After a precocious and neurotic childhood, she united with the Congregational Church when seventeen years of age. At the age of twenty-two she married George Washington Glover, probably the best of her husbands. His death, six months later, was followed by the birth of her only child and a ten years' widowhood. During this time she stayed with her relatives and had long periods of illness, princ.i.p.ally of an hysterical character. She then experimented to some extent with mesmerism and clairvoyance. In 1853 she married Dr. Daniel Patterson, an itinerant dentist, from whom she got a divorce, and as Mrs. Patterson she went first to "Dr." Quimby in 1862. She visited Quimby again in 1864, at which time, with some others, she studied with him. After Quimby's death she began teaching what she then called his science. For the next few years she wandered from town to town about Boston in straitened circ.u.mstances, healing, teaching, and endeavoring to found an organized society. It was not, however, until 1875 that the organization was formed in Lynn, and later in the same year appeared her _Science and Health_. The years since then have been filled with controversies in the law courts and newspapers, caresses and blows from the ruling hand of Mother Eddy, and numerous developments from small beginnings, until now over one hundred thousand are identified with the organization. These are almost without exception proselytes from other churches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARY BAKER EDDY]

Mrs. Eddy's doctrines are founded on a metaphysical theory known as subjective idealism, and advanced centuries before her birth. It posits the all-comprehensiveness of mind and the non-existence of matter. If bodies do not exist, diseases cannot exist, and must be only mental delusions. If the mind is freed of these delusions the disease is gone. This was Quimby's method of procedure already quoted.

In _Science and Health_ she says that the object of treatment is "to destroy the patient's belief in his physical condition." She also advises: "Mentally contradict every complaint of the body." She continues: "All disease is the result of education, and can carry its ill effects no further than mortal mind maps out the way. Destroy fear," she says, "and you end the fever." However, as with other healers, practice and theory are two different things. Listen further: "It would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating, until we gain more goodness and a clearer comprehension of the living G.o.d." Again: "Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and the supremacy of Mind, it is better to leave the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of the surgeon, while you confine yourself chiefly to mental reconstruction, and the prevention of inflammation and protracted confinement."[205]

With the exception of Christian Science, no modern religious movement has come so prominently before the public and gained so many adherents in a short time as the Christian Catholic Apostle Church of Zion, and both movements owe their popularity solely to their healing. John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), the founder of this sect, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, but in 1860, with his parents, he went to Australia, returning for two years to his native city for college study. In 1870 he was ordained to the Congregational ministry. He served three churches, and after some political activity was offered a portfolio in the Australian cabinet of Sir Henry Parks. In 1882 he went to Melbourne and established a large independent church, building a tabernacle for worship. About this time he became a firm believer in Divine Healing in direct answer to prayer. He arrived in San Francisco in 1888 and spent two years in organizing branches of the Divine Healing a.s.sociation of which he was president. He went to Chicago in 1890 and continued there holding meetings for some years. In 1895 he broke away from the International Divine Healing a.s.sociation, which he had been chiefly instrumental in organizing, and insisted that his followers should not remain in the churches. The following year the Christian Catholic Church was organized. Of this organization Mr.

Dowie was known as General Overseer, then as Prophet, and in 1904 as First Apostle. He also proclaimed himself in general as the messenger of the Covenant and Elijah the Restorer. In 1900 Mr. Dowie said: "About twenty-two thousand have been baptized by triune immersion up to the present, and this includes practically all the members." This, however, was a great exaggeration. In 1901 the head-quarters of the church was moved to Zion City, forty-two miles north of Chicago. He preached the threefold gospel of Salvation, Healing, and Holy Living.

Dowie differed from Christian Science in proclaiming the reality of disease, the distinctive feature of his doctrine being that all bodily ailment is the work of the Devil, and that Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil. His contempt for external means may be judged from the t.i.tle of a pamphlet, _Doctors, Drugs, and Devils_; nevertheless, he used physicians at least to diagnose cases at different times, a licensed medical doctor, Speicher, being a.s.sociated with him from the beginning of his work in Chicago. Dentists are a factor of Zion City, and it is said he also used an oculist. According to his doctrine there are four methods of cure: "The first is the direct prayer of faith; the second, intercessory prayer of two or more; the third, the anointing of the elders, with the prayer of faith; and the fourth, the laying on of hands of those who believe, and whom G.o.d has prepared and called to that ministry." In addition to this, teaching is the basis of all other methods. The first ten years of his healing he is said to have laid hands on eighteen thousand sick, and he declared that the greater part of them were fully healed. In some of his later years he said in an issue of his paper: "I pray and lay hands on seventy thousand people in a year." That would make one hundred and seventy-five thousand in two and a half years; but in the time preceding the statement he reported only seven hundred cures.

Evidently very few were helped. However, in Shiloh Tabernacle at Zion City are exhibited on the walls crutches, canes, surgical instruments, trusses, and almost every form of apparatus used by the medical profession, presented by people who have now no further use for them on account of their being healed.[206]

Our study began with the mental therapeutics of over a millennium before the birth of Christ; let us now close with that of the twentieth century after, in giving some account of the so-called Emmanuel Movement. In 1905 there was formed in connection with Emmanuel Church, Boston, a tuberculosis cla.s.s for the alleviation of unfortunates of this kind. In this experience it was found that certain psychic and social factors greatly aided in a cure, and in the following year, 1906, the work expanded into what has been called the "Emmanuel Movement." It is an attempt to combine the wisdom and efforts of the physician, the clergyman, the psychologist, and the sociologist, to combat conditions most frequently met in a large city.

In the medical phase of the work mental healing has had a large place, and has been emphasized most in the popular presentation of the movement, and so far as the idea has spread, it has been almost wholly in connection with this aspect. What the future of this will be is uncertain, but it seems probable that its most valuable service will be in stimulating the physicians to take up the work which properly belongs to them--the work of therapeutics in all its branches, mental and physical.