197:21 We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate
helped to make them healthy, but that is a mistake.
Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this
197:24 period. With rules of health in the head
and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would
still be dyspeptics. Many of the effeminate constitutions
197:27 of our time will never grow robust until individual opin-
ions improve and immortal belief loses some portion of its
error.
Harm done by physicians
197:30 The doctor's mind reaches that of his patient. The
doctor should suppress his fear of disease, else his belief
in its reality and fatality will harm his patients even more
198:1 than his calomel and morphine, for the higher stratum of
mortal mind has in belief more power to harm man than
198:3 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
198:6 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.
Disease depicted
198:9 The materialistic doctor, though humane, is an art-
ist who outlines his thought relative to disease, and then
fills in his delineations with sketches from text-
198:12 books. 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
198:15 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
198:18 croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving an-
other direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs,
until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a
198:21 vigorous reaction upon itself, and reproduces a picture
of healthy and harmonious formations.
A patient's belief is more or less moulded and formed
198:24 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
198:27 weaker. Hence the importance that doctors be Christian
Scientists.
Mind over matter
Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are
198:30 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
199:1 of action, and if muscles, without volition of mortal
mind, could lift the hammer and strike the anvil, it
199:3 might be thought true that hammering would enlarge
the muscles. The trip-hammer is not increased in size
by exercise. Why not, since muscles are as material as
199:6 wood and iron? Because nobody believes that mind is
producing such a result on the hammer.
Muscles are not self-acting. If mind does not move
199:9 them, they are motionless. Hence the great fact that
Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its
mandate, - by reason of its demand for and supply of
199:12 power. Not because of muscular exercise, but by rea-
son of the blacksmith's faith in exercise, his arm becomes
stronger.
Latent fear subdued