Article June 27, 1914 Issue

In these days of enlightenment it is somewhat surprising...

John M. Dean—Memphis, Tenn.

The Commercial Appeal

In these days of enlightenment it is somewhat surprising to read a report of an address delivered by the president of such a dignified body as the Tennessee State Medical Association, in which he indulges in misstatements regarding Christian Science which are no less intemperate because ignorant rather than intentional. The ordinary newspaper article does not afford sufficient space in which to answer the zealous doctor's diatribe, item by item, and indeed much of it requires no answer before an intelligent public.

For the sake of accuracy, however, permit me to say that there is no mystery in Christian Science, unless it be the "mystery of godliness," which is always strange to the mind trained in purely material modes and methods. To the man who lives in a circumscribed world, or who specializes along some narrow line of thinking, everything beyond and above what he knows—or thinks he knows—is dark and and mysterious. Christian Science is an open book that may be read of all, and it is the natural foe of ignorance in every department of life, including medicine. Mental suggestion has absolutely nothing to do with the operation of Christian Science and they are polar opposites. Even the slightest hint of hypnotic influence is exposed as something to be especially guarded against, and no Christian Scientists could or would attempt to employ it for any purpose whatever.

The insinuation that only those who have no "urgent, real, or obvious disease" find help in Christian Science, is not borne out by the facts. Hundreds of individuals in Tennessee have been healed of diseases which capable physicians had pronounuced incurable, and our medical critic need go no farther than Memphis to substantiate this statement. Here are to be found those who have been healed of almost "all manner of disease," including tuberculosis, Bright's disease, paralysis, blindness, and many other types which even the most rabid critic would not presume to class as imaginary. It will not do say that these people did not have the troubles of which they were healed, for practically every such case had been previously diagnosed and treated by reputable physicians, and to question their authenticity would be to indict the entire medical fraternity. Christian Scientists do not become such because of some fanatical determination to do without medicine, but because they have found relief from bodily and moral ills which no other system afforded them. If materia medica had proved itself sufficient to meet their needs, Christian Science would never have been heard of, and there would have been no occasion for our medical friend to lose his temper and his judgment in a discussion of something about which he evidently knows little or nothing.

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