about the patient. If he were blind he could not even tell that the patient was sick, so that all his knowledge is gathered from observation and questioning. Therefore he is doctor only in name. He dare not risk his reputation by sitting down by the patient and telling his feelings as I do. Therefore he knows he is acting the part of a hypocrite. The patient is in the hands of a deceiver, whose business it is to deceive him into some belief that happens to occur to him. At this time the physician stands to the patient like a tailor ready to fit him a garment. If rich he will persuade him he has the spinal complaint, or bronchitis, or some other disease that fits the patient's fears. If very poor, and there is no chance for a speculation, he will fit an old pair of worn out lungs on to him, just enough to keep him breathing a short time. This is the way the regular faculty humbug the people. Now when the people are educated to understand that what they believe they will create, they will cease believing what the medical men say, and try to account for their feelings in some more rational way.
I know that a belief in any disease will create a chemical change[1] in the mind, and that a person will create a phenomenon corresponding to the symptoms. This creation is named disease, according to the author. The idea disease has no effect on a person who has no fear of it. The idea small-pox, for instance, produces no effect on a person who has had it, or has had the varioloid, or has been vaccinated; but on another it is not so. The doctor can produce a chemical change by his talk. It makes no difference what he says. A phenomenon will follow to which he can give a name to suit his convenience.
For instance, a person gets into an excited, heated state and a doctor is called. He gives medicine which affects the patient and he feels better. That then is what the patient needed and the doctor has the credit. If the patient grows worse the medicine makes him sick; the doctor says he has the symptoms of a fever, while in reality he himself has been the cause of nine-tenths of the trouble. Give men the knowledge of one great truth, that man is constituted of two different principles: wisdom which is seen in Science, and error which is seen in matter or in opinions. The latter is governed by no principle known to man, but is simply the action of cause and effect; but man who sees only the phenomenon
- ↑ This term includes bodily changes, as well.
