Article February 17, 1912 Issue

The leading article in the Dispatch of recent date and...

Edinburgh (Scot.) Dispatch

The leading article in the Dispatch of recent date and the letter from Dr. Hollander, London, to the Daily Express, quoted in your columns, on the above subject, I have perused with interest. I am one who, on reading such criticism, was led through curiosity to read "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. I am not a member of the body, and do not claim to be able to represent their views. There is one thing clear to me, however, both in your article and the letter referred to, and that is, that it is assumed Christian Science is an emotional religion. It is no such thing. Its teaching and tendency is to allay excitement and to appeal to intelligence—Mind. One has only to hear and read the testimonies of those who have been benefited by Christian Science to know that it can and does soothe mental turmoil.

The doctor writes as a mental specialist, and he says he had several patients, adherents of the Christian Science doctrine, who had become insane. There are many thousands of Christian Scientists in London, and surely the "several" cases do not constitute a peril. It has been said we are all more or less insane. Does the doctor suggest that because Christian Scientists "have such a deeply rooted antagonism against medical and psycho-therapeutic treatment" they are more prone to insanity? Dr. Johnston, surgeon to King William IV., said: "I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long observation and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality." Dr. Good, a learned London professor, said: "The effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has already destroyed more lines than war, pestilence, and famine all combined."

Many other quotations from men at the head of the profession to similar effect might be made. Had these men got any "extra stimulus" to "turn them off the mental balance"? Christian Scientists hold that the teachings of Jesus Christ are as true today as they were at the time they were said. "These signs shall follow them that believe: ... they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." The doctor says: "There is no disease that Christian Science can treat which cannot be treated by a qualified physician. Their great cry is that they make pain disappear without medicine, but so can physicians who like myself practise therapeutic suggestion."

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