Editorial November 18, 1905 Issue

Health Scientifically Sought

Annie M. Knott

A recent theory respecting disease, which has found utterance by no less an authority than Sir Frederick Treves, is to the effect that "the motive of disease is benevolent and protective," and that if it were not for disease "the human race would be extinct." In his address before the Philosophical Society, in Edinburgh, he elaborated the foregoing statements, and referred, by way of illustration, to different forms of disease, including coughs and colds, which, he maintained, "were in the main manifestations of a cure." This theory is by no means new; it comes up from time to time, but never to remain, nor even to meet with temporary acceptance, so far as its practical application is concerned. It is all very well to tell sufferers that a cough and the usually attendant fever have come for the benevolent purpose of driving out a cold; it is too evident that they are worse than the cold, and the question is, What is to drive them out?

It often happens that conscientious physicians, who have come to doubt the efficacy of drugs, advise their patients to abandon their use and rely upon "nature" for their healing; but this is like telling a frightened child to go out into the dark in quest of needed help. The patient may well ask how nature can restore the health it did not preserve. Such advice practically takes away the lame man's accustomed crutch, and suggests his seeking help from an unknown source.

We learn in Christian Science that it is not possible for mortals to have continued health and strength while they are ignorant of God as Life,—the only source of health and strength. The fundamental error of belief in a life separate from God, and the belief that health is dependent upon material conditions, must inevitably lead to mental and physical discord,—to dis-ease. It may be asked whether the ill-condition is worse than that which preceded it, when the human mind and body were at ease in error. To this Christian Science answers. "The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away false pleasurable beliefs, and transplant the affections from sense to Soul" (Science and Health, p.265, 1.31).

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