Part 23 (1/2)
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.