Page:Valid Objections to So-called Christian Science (1902).pdf/53

 clear instructions as to how to heal were given: yet she is now a graduate in the art.

Knowing these facts, need we wonder at the cases of manslaughter that continually confront us in the columns of the daily press, from the malpractice of Christian Scientists? A reputable physician must study four years in a medical school, and serve, if possible, two years in a hospital, before he is deemed competent even to begin to practice; and, frequently, he has four years of college training before taking up the study of medicine. Are such patient, dutiful men as these to be relied upon, or shall we think it wiser to place our lives in the hands of individuals who do not even know the names and location of the bones and muscles of the human body, nay, whose philosophy practically denies that there really is any body?

We see in isolated cases the havoc wrought by the practice of Christian Scientists. What would be the aggregate of fatalities, provided they were our only human helps in time of sickness? The thought is almost appalling! The few cures they now make, in cases whose origin and source are in some emotional or hysterical condition, would be swal-