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."

Christian Scientists have learned that every person's experience tends to conform to the ideals which he has in mind. Therefore they are intent on having perfect ideals, and they are perhaps oftenest accused of inconsistency when they are most consistent in keeping these perfect ideals in view, however much they may seem to be contradicted by sense-testimony. Far from being an inconsequential affair, this practical and indomitable idealism has become to Christian Scientists the most effective means for bringing perfectly harmonious and eternal life into their experience, at least in proportion to their consecration and wisdom. And it will be a glad day for humanity when all doctors follow the example of Christ Jesus in having an ideal of perfect Life in place of euthanasia, and in healing disease through a large acquaintance with true spiritual health instead of seeking ever more intimate knowledge of disease. In that day doctors will heal sin and disease together, as Christian Science does now.

The arduous training of the physician outlined by our critic is more than matched by the lifelong endeavor of the faithful Christian Scientist to conform his every thought and act to the perfect standard of Christ Jesus. Physicians who have become Christian Scientists have found in Science and Health more about health than their study of disease ever had, or could have, revealed to them. In making the new-old gospel effective for healing the sick they find necessity for greater consecration of thought and purpose, more constant prayerfulness, and more loving consideration for their fellows than ever before.

Our medical critic states that he knows of a single case in which an invalid died when the surgeon "knew that life was but a matter of a few short hours without surgical aid," and attributes death to the invalid's preference for Christian Science to the operation which had already been prepared for. Knowing nothing of the facts except his statement, it may be pertinent to say that patients are often healed in Christian Science after every material remedy has failed. Christian Science inevitably prolongs life, and instead of laying the blame for this one death at its door the surgeon might profitably have refrained from being quite so sure that death would follow refusal to accept his particular treatment. Of surgical treatment it is well known that death sometimes follows quickly and in cases where every assurance is given that there is no danger. We need not go beyond our own state to find recent cases in which surgical operations on the tonsils and adenoids, and for other so-called minor ailments, have resulted fatally, contrary to all expectations. The doctors and relatives involved in these cases no doubt acted in good faith. Had their confidence been greater in another remedy they would have employed that one; and the best interests of humanity will be served by each system striving to merit popular confidence through clean, effective healing, instead of casting unnecessary aspersions at their competitors. Christian Science bears intelligent comparison with other systems of healing; careless criticism of it, grounded in entire ignorance of the subject, benefits no one.

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