The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1898-03-02


at the latter place the day Mrs. Seymour
reached there. Immediately on the AZ
rival OF his wife Mr.. Seymour went out
and cut his throat. When found by his
wife he was dying, and OH seeing him
Mrs. Seymour dropped dead by his side. "
i have casually cited these cases In
proof Of my statement that mental inlin-
onces have psthogenetic power. They
are not unique. We can all duplicate
them from our own readings and obser-
vation. The world H. full OF them. We
surely have not forgotten Professor Con-
rad Wessslhoeft's counter test % class
OF drug provers few years ago; how he
gave them all plain Saccharum iactis,
and how they brought in more symptoms
from its use than from any drug proved
Now, II mental influences have such
matchless pathogenetic power l submit
that as consistent homeopathsts VIC
must accord to them correspondingly
great therapeutic value. 1t seems to mo
that according to cur own standards
there Is no escape from this position. We
inusG lie consistent. Any agent that has
power TO destroy health, has also. when
properly applied corrs spending power to
restore health. theoretically, VT must
admit II or give up our tenets
And now the only question left is:
Have mental influences actually exhibited
such powerS ! tiink they have. Analysis
of the material which might be added
I'm proof OF this would Gil volumes.
can only suggest some Of It's sources anu
leave the details for each to till out for
himself.
First, consider that nearly all the
religions OF the word-and their name Is
legion-have claimed % establish their
gcnuiueness by some sort OF faith IL res;
and IL matters little whether the wand
OF the ancient magician, the tom-tom OF
the American savage, or ths waters of
modern I.ourdos Ire employsd-thc power
is the same, and the reslit Is practically
identical. Man is superstitious
animal, and from the earliest dawninas
! of history TO the pr sent time supersti-
tion mas impeled him TO the most daring
attitudes and this most desperate deeds
Its power is a. universal as humanity
and as incompreher ible as nird. 1t
filed the ancient world with aitars to
countless deities. IL furnished recruits
for the crusadcs 1t lighted the fires oil
the irqusirion. Born of Ignorance, its
ancestry is matchless. The mother Of
Magic, and. through that, grandmother
OF both Medicine and Religion, IL baasts
an inviu,ibl, poster.ty-a posterity albeit
in which even the casual observ.r
cannot fail tn notice ancestral resem-
blances But | am wandt ring. Let me
come back to my theme. The ques ion
is: Wrat evidence have we that mental
influences have exerted curative power!
In reply, | would say: Frat. We have
the evidence of human testimony in
innumerabie instances whore no other
agency was emplu, ed; and sec md, we
have tie same kind OF testimony in as
many cases wtere the agents employed
wtre ftom any reasonable standpoint,
either at 5 lately inert or positively detri-
montal.
Ihe ancien,s cured their sick ones by
invcc .tion to some deity, the laying on
of hands, or otfcr similar means. such
cure are said 10 have been wrought in
Persia, Egypt Greece and Rome, as we'll
as Palestine. During the Dark Ages
belief in the touch OF royalty was com
mon. Scrofula was so amenabls To this
tr, atment taat it WAS called in England
the King Evil and down II tbs reign
Of Queen Anne inultitudes of people are
said TO have been cured by it. Queen
flaw. eoulu not exercise this power But
the Kings OF France could, ard on the
Easter of 1856, Louis XIV is said to have
touch he'd 1900 patients
When Martin Luther went first to
Rome, he found in one Of the churches a
Baby. Ibis was carried about from one
sisk room to another and was said to
perforM more cures than all the doctors
of the Eternal City. or course. this may
not bs saving very much for il, but IL
was said to work miracles People fall
ing from great heights, or drowning,
cailsd upon this baSy ana escaped harm.
For many centurns there were those
who taught that disease eoul1 be cured
tyisome magnetic. power In man, but it
rem alued for the great mind controller
Frederick Anton Me.mer of Vienna-to
develop che doctrine of animal magnet
ism; and since his day the word Mesmer-
ism has been in general use. In recent
times this subject has attracted the alton
tion Of the brightest minds, among
whom may be mentioned Ds. Braid OF
England, who was the first to make prac-
,ical use Of suggestion and who has
ci ven Us the term "hypnotisn," F" and DIR.
Carpenter the eminent Psychologist
France is giving it still moro attention,
and very marvellous cures are reported
from the Salp5 triere and Nancy hospitals.
But We need nos 20 to Europe for
evidence of the therapeutic value of
hypnotism. some of our own doctors are
renortlug results almost as marvellous as
those OF wolfart, or Charsot or Bsrnheirp.
DR. James Il. Cooke, in his recent
publication on hypnotism, reports i'm