On the 29th of May, 1901, I had my arm broken while...

On the 29th of May, 1901, I had my arm broken while attending to business at a distance from home. I was brought home in an ambulance and attended by two physicians. After two hours' manipulation, they agreed that it was impossible to set the bone as it was a clean break of the large bone of the upper arm and too near the shoulder to use splints. One physician turned to my wife, and said: "It might as well be nipped off [meaning amputated], as he will never be able to use the arm again. This winds up his usefulness." My wife did not answer him, but in silence declared the truth. The doctors worked another hour or so over my unconscious body, and then agreed to bind the arm close to the body and wait until morning before proceeding further. As soon as they left the house, my wife called a Christian Science practitioner, who had before brought us through deep and dark waters of tribulation, and told her what had happened. The Scientist said, "I will go right to work for him and you go to bed. It will be all right. Man cannot be broken or disabled." In the morning we were all up and doing. I, too, in a way was able to think over my business while sitting in a chair at home. About ten o'clock the doctor came in just as I had finished breakfast, and said, "What! have you really eaten that breakfast? That is more than I can account for." Then he called at the store where my wife was, and said, "That husband of yours beats all I have ever seen. He is really up and has eaten breakfast." An hour or so later he said, "It is too bad to touch the arm while he is so comfortable." So it was more than two weeks before I would agree to have the bandages renewed, and then it was absolutely necessary to make a change. They placed a cap over the shoulder, bound the arm to it, vowed it never would be useful, and that was all the doctors did for me. In one month I went to business, and in seven weeks I could use a hammer, which the doctors said I never would use again. Not only was the broken arm healed, but my left shoulder, which had been dislocated years before and pronounced incurable, was also free from pain, though heretofore it had troubled me constantly. I was also healed of erysipelas in a severe form when it seemed as if I had only a few hours to live. I almost forgot to mention that my age was sixty-seven, a fact which the doctors and every one else seemed to dwell upon as discouraging.—Charles J. A. Geertz, Newark, N. J.