It is with mingled sorrow and indignation that those who understand through Christian Science the laws of mental operation, have followed the "working up" in mind of the influenza scare, to its present gigantic proportions. First the press thundered in all ears the decree of materia medica as to its coming hither; this the doctors confirmed and explained, with learned reasons,—gave the symptoms, laws of development, and probabilities of fatal termination. Thus everybody knew just how to have it. The manner in which all this has been carried out, its appearance and propagation simultaneously with its declaration on the seaboard, at widely separated points all over our vast territory, demonstrates to the most superficial observer, human thought as its only carrier.
And what a pitiable figure so-called medical science presents! We have been familiar with influenza for many years; la grippe has been equally well known on the continent of Europe as an inconvenient visitor, but its victims were objects of ridicule rather than concern. During all these years has medical science done or proposed anything tending to eradicate it, or limit its development? Have there been any propositions in this direction during the last weeks, in which it has become an international scourge?
No! Medical science has meekly bowed before it,—as it has before every other like usurper—as a law-giver; limits itself to recording its symptoms, registering and announcing its laws; as though they were rescripts of a despot to be blindly obeyed, "while sufferers are satisfied to see their supposed curers busy, and to pay them for both making sickness and trying to heal it." Science and Health. There are many indications in the press, and more among individuals, that two points have been strongly impressed on the public mind by recent events; first, that the conditions of propagation of the epidemic are largely, if not wholly mental, and second, the pitiable helplessness of doctors. The first finds frequent expression in the papers; the second is not yet popular enough to find full voice in the press, but the signs are abundant that it is working deeply.
