Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/75

Rh "the doctors had given up as hopeless," fervently testified to their power. Thus Quimby and Burkmar inevitably received numerous appeals from the sick. After a few trials, Quimby became convinced that in a mesmeric state Burkmar could diagnose and treat disease. Though absolutely ignorant of medicine and anatomy, Burkmar described minutely the ailments of numerous patients, and prescribed medicines, which, although absurd to a physician, apparently produced favourable results. For three or four years Quimby and Burkmar practised with considerable success. Consumptives, according to popular report, began to get well, the blind saw, and the halt walked.

Quimby then made an important discovery. After careful observation, he concluded that neither Burkmar nor his remedies, in themselves, had the slightest power. Burkmar, he believed, did not himself diagnose the case. He merely reported what the patient, or some one else present in the room, imagined the disease to be. He had, Quimby thought, a clairvoyant or mind-reading faculty, by which he simply reproduced the opinion which the sick had themselves formed. Quimby also discovered that, in instances where improvement actually took place, the drug prescribed had nothing to do with it. Once Burkmar, in the mesmeric state, ordered a concoction too expensive for the patient's purse. Quimby mesmerised him again; and this time he prescribed a cheaper remedy—which served the purpose quite as well. After a few experiences of this kind, Quimby concluded that Burkmar's prescriptions did not produce the cures, but that the patients cured themselves. Burkmar's only service was that he implanted in the sick man's mind an unshakable faith that he would get well. Any other person, or