Page:Valid Objections to So-called Christian Science (1902).pdf/36

 causes; and it has placed all manifestations of pain and sickness under the former.

Physicians recognize the effect of the mental state upon the development of illness; and, like true scientists, they give it its value and relegate it to its proper place. They, furthermore, classify certain affections under the head of mental, emotional, nervous, hysterical, etc.; and in their practice they treat such disorders, when recognized, by a method of moral suasion, nervous shock, and hypnotic suggestion.

The mind is known to have an effect on the nerves; for they are each a part of the same sensory process; and the vaso-motor system of nerves is known to surround the muscular tissue of the blood vessels and to control the supply of blood throughout the whole human organism. Hence, if the nervous system be disorganized through emotion, worry, hysteria, the normal flow of the nourishing blood to the various parts of the body is disturbed, and we get the phenomena of congestion or anzmia, either an inflammation or a starving of a part. A contented mind, therefore, induces health; while a discontented mind is more likely to produce the opposite. Emo-