Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/214

198 than his calomel and morphine, for the higher stratum of mortal mind has in belief more power to harm man than

the substratum, matter. A patient hears the doctor's verdict as a criminal hears his death-sentence. The patient may seem calm under it, but he is not. His fortitude may sustain him, but his fear, which has already developed the disease that is gaining the mastery, is increased by the physician's words.

The materialistic doctor, though humane, is an artist who outlines his thought relative to disease, and then

fills in his delineations with sketches from textbooks. It is better to prevent disease from forming in mortal mind afterwards to appear on the body; but to do this requires attention. The thought of disease is formed before one sees a doctor and before the doctor undertakes to dispel it by a counter-irritant, — perhaps by a blister, by the application of caustic or croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving another direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs, until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a vigorous reaction upon itself, and reproduces a picture of healthy and harmonious formations.

A patient's belief is more or less moulded and formed by his doctor's belief in the case, even though the doctor says nothing to support his theory. His thoughts and his patient's commingle, and the stronger thoughts rule the weaker. Hence the importance that doctors be Christian Scientists.

Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are

strongly developed, it does not follow that exercise has produced this result or that a less used arm must be weak. If matter were the cause