Now that the Post has printed the conclusions concerning...

Judge Clifford P. Smith

The Boston (Mass.) Post

Now that the Post has printed the conclusions concerning spiritual healing that were announced in England last May by a clerical and medical committee of inquiry, the following statement from another point of view is submitted, with an earnest request for its publication.

The committee whose report was thus noticed was composed exclusively of representatives of the clerical and medical professions. Christian Scientists had no part in its proceedings. The position from which the members of this committee found but little to say in favor of Christian healing is indicated by the following excerpt from their report: —

"They would point out that for a satisfactory investigation of any case the following evidence is necessary :—

"(1) A diagnosis by a medical practitioner, before treatment, with a short history of the signs and symptoms.

"(2) An account of the treatment carried out, with dates and other details.

"(3) A medical examination, after treatment, by the same doctor if possible, with a detailed account of the changes which have taken place."

The stand thus taken plainly means that spiritual healing must depend for its evidence on the conclusions of a system whose theories do not admit of such healing. By the very nature of his training, a medical doctor is almost the last person who should be called upon to decide such an issue. From his point of view, as frequently disclosed, indisputable evidence of present health would simply disprove a former diagnosis of disease, subject only to the possibility that the party "just got well anyway."

The following observation from "The Sense and Nonsense of Christian Science" by Professor Prince of Dickinson College, is pertinent: "Generally speaking, the members of the medical fraternity, when confronted with the attested works of Christian Science, either deny the correctness of the original diagnosis or else deny the cure. The first is a reflection upon the competency of their own profession, the second is a blind and utterly indefensible contradiction of the evidence."

There was a time when accounts of Christian Science healing —the overcoming of physical disorder by an exclusively mental and spiritual method —were received with incredulity by disinterested persons. That time is passing, and among well-informed people it may perhaps be said to have passed. Now that these cases of healing have become numerous, either personal observation or the weight of testimony has convinced most people, and the greater part of those who still hold out have chosen a difficult position. They can say they have never known a case of Christian Science healing only by refusing to accept the statements of persons who are worthy of belief on other subjects, or by insisting on some other explanation for effects which, in the ordinary course of reasoning, would be credited to Christian Science.

The change of sentiment on this subject can be briefly instanced here. Thus, in 1909 the government printing-office at Washington issued a "Report on National Vitality," which was prepared for the national conservation commission by Prof. Irving Fisher of Yale University. In this report Professor Fisher said: "The public should go, and will go, to those who will render the most effective help. . . . There was no reason why it [the medical profession] should have lost hundreds of thousands of patients to Christian Science, except that these patients were for the most part benefited, and greatly benefited, by Christian Science after having received no benefit, and often injury, from the profession."

During a debate in the United States Senate in July, 1911, while Senator Works of California was speaking in opposition to a bill introduced by Senator Owen of Oklahoma for a national department of health, Senator Owen said: "The senator has spoken, Mr. President, of the value of Christian Science. I myself believe it has been very efficacious in many cases. What the process is by which recovery is accomplished I do not think is thoroughly understood." Christian Scientists are glad to make grateful acknowledgment of the fact that a considerable number of physicians, while not adopting Christian Science, have borne witness to its virtue. Thus Dr. Richard C. Cabot of Boston, professor of medicine in Harvard University, said in the Twentieth Century Magazine for January, 1912: "That Christian Science has done and is doing a vast deal of good, not only as a religion, but as a health restorer and a protest against the short-sighted naturalism of the doctors, we are firmly convinced. Its affirmations are helpful to thousands."

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