Testimony of medical teachers

With due respect for the faculty, I kindly 162:30 quote from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia teacher of medical practice. He declared that "it is impossible to calculate the mischief 163:1 which Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick 163:3 people."

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard Uni- versity, declared himself "sick of learned quackery."

163:6 Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon to William IV, King Of England, said:

"I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long 163:9 observation and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be 163:12 less sickness and less mortality."

Dr. Mason Good, a learned Professor in London, said:

163:15 "The effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and 163:18 famine, all combined."

Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Inst.i.tutes and Practice of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, in a published 163:21 essay said:

"Consulting the records of our science, we cannot help being disgusted with the mult.i.tude of hypotheses 163:24 obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the imagination displayed to a greater extent; and perhaps so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify 163:27 our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction, and falsehood. To harmonize the contrarieties of med- 163:30 ical doctrines is indeed a task as impracticible as to arrange the fleeting vapors around us, or to reconcile the fixed and repulsive antipathies of nature. Dark and 164:1 perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of Homer's Cyclops around his cave."

164:3 Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, said:

"No systematic or theoretical cla.s.sification of diseases 164:6 or of therapeutic agents, ever yet promulgated, is true, or anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe guidance in practice."

164:9 It is just to say that generally the cultured cla.s.s of medi- cal pract.i.tioners are grand men and women, therefore they are more scientific than are false claimants to Chris- 164:12 tian Science. But all human systems based on material premises are minus the unction of divine Science. Much yet remains to be said and done before all mankind is 164:15 saved and all the mental microbes of sin and all diseased thought-germs are exterminated.

If you or I should appear to die, we should not be 164:18 dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental a.s.sa.s.sins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; 164:21 rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality mis- called life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 164:24 remains paramount that Life, Truth, and Love save from sin, disease, and death. "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 164:27 immortality [divine Science], then shall be brought to pa.s.s the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (St. Paul).

CHAPTER VII - PHYSIOLOGY

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.

Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? - JESUS.

He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. - PSALMS.

165:1 PHYSIOLOGY is one of the apples from "the tree of knowledge." Evil declared that eating this fruit 165:3 would open man's eyes and make him as a G.o.d. Instead of so doing, it closed the eyes of mortals to man's G.o.d- given dominion over the earth.

Man not structural

165:6 To measure intellectual capacity by the size of the brain and strength by the exercise of muscle, is to subjugate intelligence, to make mind mor- 165:9 tal, and to place this so-called mind at the mercy of material organization and non-intelligent matter.

165:12 Obedience to the so-called physical laws of health has not checked sickness. Diseases have multiplied, since man-made material theories took the place of spiritual 165:15 truth.

Causes of sickness

You say that indigestion, fatigue, sleeplessness, cause distressed stomachs and aching heads. Then 165:18 you consult your brain in order to remember what has hurt you, when your remedy lies in forgetting 166:1 the whole thing; for matter has no sensation of its own, and the human mind is all that can produce pain.

166:3 As a man thinketh, so is he. Mind is all that feels, acts, or impedes action. Ignorant of this, or shrinking from its implied responsibility, the healing effort is made 166:6 on the wrong side, and thus the conscious control over the body is lost.

Delusions pagan and medical

The Mohammedan believes in a pilgrimage to Mecca 166:9 for the salvation of his soul. The popular doctor believes in his prescription, and the pharmacist believes in the power of his drugs to save a man's 166:12 life. The Mohammedan's belief is a religious delusion; the doctor's and pharmacist's is a medical mistake.

Health from reliance on spirituality

166:15 The erring human mind is inharmonious in itself.

From it arises the inharmonious body. To ignore G.o.d as of little use in sickness is a mistake.

166:18 Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn 166:21 that He can do all things for us in sickness as in health.

Failing to recover health through adherence to physi- 166:24 ology and hygiene, the despairing invalid often drops them, and in his extremity and only as a last resort, turns to G.o.d. The invalid's faith in the divine Mind is less 166:27 than in drugs, air, and exercise, or he would have resorted to Mind first. The balance of power is conceded to be with matter by most of the medical systems; but when 166:30 Mind at last a.s.serts its mastery over sin, disease, and death, then is man found to be harmonious and immortal.

167:1 Should we implore a corporeal G.o.d to heal the sick out of His personal volition, or should we understand the 167:3 infinite divine Principle which heals? If we rise no higher than blind faith, the Science of healing is not attained, and Soul-existence, in the place of sense-existence, is not com- 167:6 prehended. We apprehend Life in divine Science only as we live above corporeal sense and correct it. Our pro- portionate admission of the claims of good or of evil de- 167:9 termines the harmony of our existence, - our health, our longevity, and our Christianity.

The two masters

We cannot serve two masters nor perceive divine Sci- 167:12 ence with the material senses. Drugs and hygiene cannot successfully usurp the place and power of the divine source of all health and perfection. If 167:15 G.o.d made man both good and evil, man must remain thus. What can improve G.o.d's work? Again, an error in the premise must appear in the conclusion. To have 167:18 one G.o.d and avail yourself of the power of Spirit, you must love G.o.d supremely.

Half-way success

The "flesh l.u.s.teth against the Spirit." The flesh and 167:21 Spirit can no more unite in action, than good can coin- cide with evil. It is not wise to take a halt- ing and half-way position or to expect to work 167:24 equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There, is but one way - namely, G.o.d and His idea - which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the 167:27 body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is im- possible to gain control over the body in any other way.

On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is abso- 167:30 lutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.

Subst.i.tuting good words for a good life, fair seeming 168:1 for straightforward character, is a poor shift for the weak and worldly, who think the standard of Christian Science 168:3 too high for them.

Belief on the wrong side

If the scales are evenly adjusted, the removal of a single weight from either scale gives preponderance to the oppo- 168:6 site. Whatever influence you cast on the side of matter, you take away from Mind, which would otherwise outweigh all else. Your belief militates 168:9 against your health, when it ought to be enlisted on the side of health. When sick (according to belief) you rush after drugs, search out the material so-called laws of 168:12 health, and depend upon them to heal you, though you have already brought yourself into the slough of disease through just this false belief.

The divine authority

168:15 Because man-made systems insist that man becomes sick and useless, suffers and dies, all in consonance with the laws of G.o.d, are we to believe it? Are 168:18 we to believe an authority which denies G.o.d's spiritual command relating to perfection, - an authority which Jesus proved to be false? He did the will of the 168:21 Father. He healed sickness in defiance of what is called material law, but in accordance with G.o.d's law, the law of Mind.

Disease foreseen

168:24 I have discerned disease in the human mind, and rec- ognized the patient's fear of it, months before the so-called disease made its appearance in the body. Dis- 168:27 ease being a belief, a latent illusion of mortal mind, the sensation would not appear if the error of belief was met and destroyed by truth.

Changed mentality

168:30 Here let a word be noticed which will be better understood hereafter, - _chemicalization_.

By chemicalization I mean the process which mortal 169:1 mind and body undergo in the change of belief from a material to a spiritual basis.

Scientific foresight

169:3 Whenever an aggravation of symptoms has occurred through mental chemicalization, I have seen the mental signs, a.s.suring me that danger was over, before 169:6 the patient felt the change; and I have said to the patient, "You are healed," - sometimes to his dis- comfiture, when he was incredulous. But it always came 169:9 about as I had foretold.

I name these facts to show that disease has a mental, mortal origin, - that faith in rules of health or in drugs 169:12 begets and fosters disease by attracting the mind to the subject of sickness, by exciting fear of disease, and by dos- ing the body in order to avoid it. The faith reposed in 169:15 these things should find stronger supports and a higher home. If we understood the control of Mind over body, we should put no faith in material means.

Mind the only healer