Through Christian Science I have been cured of constipation, with which I have been troubled all my life, lameness, back-ache, side-ache, and serious mental trouble. It seemed as though there was nothing right about me. I could not sleep, and had no appetite; for two or three years I have had to force myself to eat.
Six years ago I came to America with my father and mother and sister and brothers. We went to Bakersfield. My father and sister had malaria there and we were obliged to go up in the mountains to live. One day in 1896, when I was walking, my ankle turned and slipped out of place. I found I could get it back but it would not stay, and it gradually became harder to put back in place; finally it got so, that I walked on my ankle bone instead of the bottom of the foot. There were no doctors in that region whom my parents dared to trust, my father would bandage my foot to a splint; he would have to use all his force to push it in place and some one had to hold it, for if they let go of it, it would spring back again all crooked. Finally we gave up bandaging it, and I walked on it as it was, until I got some crutches. At last we came to Pasadena.
The doctors said it was nervous hysteria that made it contract so, for when under chloroform my foot became straight, but as soon as the effects of the chloroform were gone, it would contract again. I had it put in a plaster cast, and took medicine for my nerves, but it did no good.
