Editorial October 2, 1948 Issue

FROM MUMMY SKULL TO MIND

Robert Ellis Key

On page 158 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the author, Mary Baker Eddy, gives a short account of the history of medicine. She points out that according to record material medicine originated in idolatry, and that pagan priests besought the gods to heal the sick. She says it is recorded that "Hippocrates turned from image-gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for healing." From these crude beginnings elaborate's stems of materia medica are said to have arisen.

The first edition of the "London Pharmacopæia," published in 1618, included in its materia medica a number of things derived from witchcraft and astrology. Among these were foxes' tongues, crabs' eyes, and mummy skulls. As late as 1750, in the fifth edition of this Pharmacopæia, mummy skull was still employed as a remedy, though other unpleasant things were omitted as being derived "superstitiously and dotingly from oracles, dreams and astrological fancies."

The practice of materia medica was not, therefore, based on fixed Principle and basic law, but rather on the fluctuating and unstable foundation of human belief. It is, however, clearly evident that in all ages the art of healing has occupied the attention and indeed the devotion of men and women of learning and integrity . The desire to do good was constantly present, but the line of investigation being based on matter, no result was produced that could be designated exact or scientific. Thus we find the textbooks of materia medica changing from generation to generation, until a bewildered public turns to unorthodox schools and futile methods in an effort to obtain relief. One by one the props of materiality rot and crumble. New methods are tried, sensational announcements made, only to result eventually in disappointment or failure. Thus in a wilderness of human beliefs, mortals long to find a pure and refreshing fount of living water from which, when parched and suffering, they can drink and find relief.

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