Article June 13, 1914 Issue

In a recent issue of your paper there is printed a brief...

Frederick Dixon—Wellington Salop, England

Wellington Journal

In a recent issue of your paper there is printed a brief report of a hospital Sunday sermon. In the course of this discourse the clergyman said that without going to the excess of Eddyism, there were doubtless spiritual remedies at their disposal. Permit me to say that the use of the term "Eddyism" to denote Christian Science is discourteous; in a way it answers itself, since Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Wesleyanism are still used to indicate great forms of the Protestant religion which have exerted a mighty influence on the world. At the same time, when an enormous number of people, whose churches have been established in every civilized country, adopt the name of Christian Scientists, it would be at least polite of a minister to refer to them by their own name.

The gentleman went on to say that prayer and faith without medicine were as senseless as medicine without prayer, and the two elements should work together. In other words, he laid down the doctrine that it was impossible to heal the sick without medicine, which is going a good deal farther than the great mass of the medical profession itself. One of the greatest medical men in the country, Sir Almroth Wright, has declared that "no drug has been discovered, so far as we know, which is capable of killing the microbe in the interior of the body." It would seem, therefore, that a patient with a microbe in his interior is in a parlous condition, since prayer and faith are useless without medicine, and medicine is in this case useless.

Then there is the awkward statement which was made by Richard Winfrey, who, in addressing the Public Pharmacists and Dispensers Association the other day, explained how he discovered a doctor's coachman, who had been allowed to dispense prescriptions, using the formula of spirits of chloroform for chloroform water. Mr. Winfrey declared that he did not know what would have happened when they got to the bottom of the bottle, if the mistake had not been discovered. To the ordinary man such dispensing would indeed seem rather a hindrance to prayer and faith than anything else. If medicine is senseless without prayer, it can only be said that an enormous number of the sick people in the world are treated senselessly, since it is certain that though they have doctors, they do not have prayers. These things, however, are in a measure by the way; the question is, from a Christian standpoint, whether drugs are a necessity or not.

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