Article February 11, 1905 Issue

The Spread of Disease

ALFRED FARLOW

Boston Times

The free and unscrupulous advertising of disease symptoms is conceded by most people to be harmful, yet very little is said against such practice, and few note to what extent disease becomes prevalent because of it. When we consider the robust health which our ancestors possessed in the days when less was known of disease, we are obliged to admit that with the increase of material knowledge has come an increase of maladies. Many types and symptoms of disease exist to-day which were not known in earlier days, and it might be well to study the cause of this condition.

It is claimed that physicians are better able to cope with certain forms of disease than in former years; that they deal more effectually with contagious diseases. This may be true, since fear is a great factor in the production of disease, and especially those of infectious and contagious types. It is probably easier for the kind, assuring physician to heal acute sickness than to overcome chronic troubles. This can be accounted for on the basis that all causation is mental, that disease operates in the mind of the patient before it is manifested on the body. Though a patient may not be conscious of any fear of specific disease, his fear of the general uncertainty of health and the laws of contagion places him in a position where he has a standing invitation to all sorts of trouble. He should dwell in the consciousness of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, and thereby close the door against the intrusion of disorder. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that much ado about disease and trouble tends to keep the mind filled with prospective calamity, and not only fosters unrest but makes the individual a more easy prey to disease and trouble. Even accidents and catastrophes more readily reach the fearful than those who are calm and composed. Sensational stories about casualties, vivid pictures of disease in its varied symptoms, are not healthful, for the reason that whatever is entertained in mind is likely to be expressed in body. They tend to obscure exalted ideals. We should keep in mind the thought of God's child as protected, sheltered, and sustained by the divine presence and power, if we would be free from fear and anxiety. Thus we would conform to the requirements set forth in the Scriptural text, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

There is no promise in the Scriptures of safety and rest in the contemplation of evils, discords, imperfections, and diseases. This is the promise, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee." Many an individual, after the careful study of a specific disease, has contracted a well-developed case of that disease. Many a person, by the careful study of symptoms in a medical advertisement, has planted seed from which he has developed the very symptoms and disease which have been so vividly portrayed to him. How often a retrospection of one's troubles has brought about their renewal. In the writing of news reports, and in the recounting of dangerous experiences and horrible conditions, the temptation is to indulge in a vivid portrayal, if not an exaggeration. Even Christian Scientists, in their effort to make a good impression by presenting a striking contrast between the "before and after taking," sometimes enter altogether too much into the horrors of disease; they thus make it seem the more real.

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