The St. Joseph observer. [volume] (St. Joseph, Mo.) 1906-1932, 1916-10-28
Infantile Paralysis
written for the Christian Science Monitor)

/ were several pennies the better, for as
Truth" remarks, dryly commenting
on the admissions, were there not the
importers and manufacturers of qui-
nine?
The conclusion from all this is
obvious. Centuries of the study of
material medicine have only ended in
the multiplication of diseases. The
world is really, so far as it is possible
to judge historically, no healthier than
it was centuries ago, and whatever
alteration may have taken place for
the better, has taken place not
through the discoveries of the medi-
cal schools, but through its own belief
in the efforts of sanitary engineers.
The effects of growing belief in
cleanliness has produced a cleaner
mental and, therefore, necessarily a
cleaner physical condition, but this
has had nothing to do with medicine.
The great plaques vanished when
common precautions were taken to
make towns sanitary. That, however,
did not abolish disease. For thous-
and years remedies have been chang
ing, but there is as much necessity
today for serums and drugs as ever
there was in the first century for
tabloids and ointments. And yet, in
the first century whilst the doctors
of Rome and Athens were stocking
their pharmacies with red scorpions
and with vipers' flesh, the world was
being told of a healing which, if it
would only have accepted it, instead
of the appalling concoctions of the
medical schools, would have long ago
rid it of all disease
That remedy is as available today
as it was then, and this fact is begin
ming to be recognized. 1t is all very
we'll for the health board of Brooklyn
to issue pictures in which the doctor
is seen advancing in a halo of light
into the sick room, but the doctor can
scarcely be said to have earned the
environment which, up to now, the
orthodox religious bodies have re-
served for their saints. The doctor
may arrive, as this cartoon of the
health board insists, in a halo, but
when he arrives he is able to do lit
tie more, according to the bulletin
which accompanies him, than warn
the parents of the sick child against
almost everything which is normal
to it. 1t is not to be allowed to play
with children from houses where there
is any sickness, or to play at all with
children from out of town; it is not
to be taken to any place where disease
exists or has recently existed; it is
not to go to a picnic, a party, or an
outing; it is not to be seen at the
moving pictures; no one is to kiss it,
or use a handkerchief on it; and it is
not to be taken into a crowd. The
parents by this time must be begin
ming to wonder whether it is safe to
possess a child at all, and whether
everybody elses children are not so
many dangers to their own.
The simple fact of the matter is that
it is these terrible warnings to the
world of the danger of disease, that
are making children share in all the
fears which, in the past, have been
confided only to their parents. This,
as a result, is filling the whole world
with a dread of disease, which can
not be expected to have any other re-
suit than the termination Of disease.
When instead of using the press to
advertise fear of disease, the medical
profession uses the press to encour-
age the world in belief in good in
stead of in evil, and in the knowledge
of good to prevent evil, the world will
begin to grow more healthy. For an
understanding of the power and
reality of good will prove a mental
serum, from which not only no i'll
effects but nothing but health will
ever be found to occur.