The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-01-15

| A Physicians View of the Method by Which
Christian Scientists Effect Cures.
Boston Transcript.
Now the Christian scientist, or the mental
healer, comes in and sits down at the patients
bedside. She begins by abolishng all bottles
and medicine glasses from the room. They are
the outward signs and reminders OF sickness.
Then she tells everybody to go out and is left
alone with the patient. That directs the patients
thoughts pretty stronly to the 'healer," and
lays the foundation for the influence presently
attempt to think that the disease the pain
is not rea that it does not really ex-
list though perfectly. palpable. She uses
a good deal of fascinating talk. and sets the pa
TENTS mind specifically at work a task which
is hostile. so to speak, to the sensation Of the
illness Then she says, while you are making
element comes in, and the patient feels the in
fuence of it to some extent, even when per-
fectly incredulous. The healer repeats her
treatment" and bv dint of calm insistence,
succeeds, no doubt in producing an effect of
assur ance of safety upon the patient If she
does, the cure through natures own inherent
tendency to recover, is facilitated by the treat
ment.
THAT is my theory of the matter, where there
is an apparent cure. But the situation is COM
plicated by thousand conditions. In some
the disease is imagined, out and out, no
doubt. In those cases the proper treatment is
OF course a mental In other cases, where
there is real fuctional arrangement, suspen-
sion of the symptoms may be induced by Undue
ing strong mental action. All the doctors will
tell you Cnat ana IN the meantime GOOD Nature,
the healer excellence the most
Christian scientist of all, is doing her
work. But if the tendency is to DEATH
if the arrangement is fatal and ncurable, the
insensibility that the treatment has produced
is only temporary. The aiment returns. though
Christian science may seem to do for time
what honest medical science could not do. A
suspension is but suspension, after all.
1T comes to this, then. that Christian science
has in it good-sized grain of merit among a
mass of error. That element of truth will sur
vive and be absorbed by medical practice. The
error will go tho way of all other errors. Medi-
cal science is, after all, founded upon exper-
fence; it has had its errors. and
stuck to them long aud stubbornly, and
finally frankly acknowledged them. Most OF
us believe that homeopathy was founded upon a
fallacy, but Homeopathy, for all that, has pro-
fouudly affected the regular practice AS for
medicine itself, the tendency of the time is
against that A good deal of it has been a con-
cessiou to popular prejudice. If the popular
prejudice turns against medicine. surely less and
less of it will be used and science will be just as
we'll off without lt. But fallacies never survive
very long The mind-cure itself is already I'M
dergoing change. Some of its leading apostles
are insensbly changing their views. Some of
them appear to be drifting into theosophy
Others show distinct tendency to what the
world recognizes as scientific reasonipg-a recon
ciliaLion with common sense.