Article March 17, 1917 Issue

In answering a critic of material medicine in your columns...

Thorwald Siegfried

Tacoma (Wash.) Tribune

In answering a critic of material medicine in your columns a physician went out of his way to "judge that our critic belongs to that class of people who believe in Christian Science." In the fact that the critic he names is not a Christian Scientist the doctor may find food for thought because it indicates that material medicine is unpopular even with those who are not fortunate enough to have displaced it with Christian Science healing.

The doctor says that it is the "duty of those whom we call physicians and surgeons to secure for the human race such good health as shall bear them in activity and happiness onward in their course to that goal, euthanasia." If that be a correct statement of the purpose of material medicine, then popular dissatisfaction with it is indeed warranted, and its failure to bring the healing which well intentioned doctors hope for and expect, is easily explained. Euthanasia means, very simply, an easy death, and with that as an ideal, or "goal," it is difficult to see how any one can help mankind to experience harmonious and eternal life.

If it be answered that death itself is a stepping-stone to life eternal, it may fairly be said that no bit of rational proof has ever been brought in support of such a self-contradictory proposition; moreover, both the precept and the example of Christ Jesus accord with Mrs. Eddy's statement concerning the perfect life: "Death can never hasten this state of existence, for death must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears" (Science and Health, p. 76). Of his own mission Jesus said that its purpose was "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life," and that he who understands him "hath everlasting life, and ... is passed from death unto life."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

In answering a critic of material medicine in your columns...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access