W. said:
"I think that L. is troubled with false imaginations, and that he has inherited this tendency. His father was subject to the hypo—always a prey to imaginations. I question whether the root of L.'s whole difficulty does not lie in his imagination. I don't doubt but that he feels what he thinks he does, but imagination has terrible power to make us feel. Christ can cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God."
J. said:
"He talks a great deal about his symptoms. If he would talk on the side of faith, I think he would be a well man right off. He is as well as any body when he is well, and there is no reason why he should not be well all the time. He is a very valuable member of the community, and I don't like to see him lie on his back so much.
"M.—I have thought that his knowledge of physiology, as he uses it, is really a hindrance to him: he knows too much about his case.
"C.—I thought I had the heart disease when I was about nineteen years of age. My heart would beat so when I went up stairs that I had to sit down at the top. I remember that I said to my aunt one day I was sure that I had got that disease, because my heart had such times of beating. 'O la!' she answered,' I guess you would not live long if it did not beat.'
"N. [probably Mr. Noyes]—I have good reason to believe that a great many diseases which doctors pronounce incurable are so so far as their powers are concerned, and yet can be cured by exorcism. Doctors do not believe in possession by the devil, and of course have no means of curing diseases of that nature. They accordingly pronounce some diseases incurable. Yet these diseases are not incurable by persons who understand the nature of them, and that they are spiritual obsessions. I do not care what the doctors say about L.'s back. It is very likely incurable so far as they know, and yet it may be very easily curable to any body who knows about the doctrine of the possession of the devil. There is a range of science beyond the routine of the doctors which we must take into the account in all this dealing with disease. Just look at the case of Harriet Hall, and see what incurable diseases she had. Two doctors certified that she ought to be dead twenty years ago, and here she is alive and waiting on her father. Those doctors are dead, and she is trotting around.
"E.—I have been associated a good deal with L. in business and now in this sickness. I have studied his case some. His attitude toward disease is very much like his attitude in business. When he has been well and able to do his best, he has been in the past an autocrat in our businesses. If he said a thing would not go, or would go, his dictum was always accepted. He has a good deal of pride in having what he predicts turn out to be true. I have sometimes thought that he was willing to have things break down in order to demonstrate his infallibility as an oracle. He shows the same trait in regard to disease. If he has a symptom, and makes up his mind that he is going to have a certain disease, he notifies his friends of it, and seems bound to have his prophecy come true any way.
"N.—He would rather have a good chill, I suppose, than have his prediction prove false.
"E.—I think he really knows but very little about his case. He lost his health, and took up the study of medicine to find out what ailed him. It may seem paradoxical, but I think that he is suffering for want of work; his brain is suffering for want of some healthy action. If he would use his brain about something for only half an hour a day, he would find himself improving right along.