I was an invalid for many years. My mental suffering was as hard to bear as the physical. Trouble had brought on nervousness. I had nervous prostration three times, catarrh of the mucous membrane of the whole system, serious sore throat several times every winter, indigestion, sciatica, muscular and inflammatory rheumatism, neuralgia so bad in the head that my hair turned white over the temples at twenty-three years of age. I also had constipation and liver trouble. My kidneys were affected to such an extent that the doctors feared they could not save one of them from dissolving; they said I also had valvular heart trouble caused by rheumatism.
I tried many physicians who did for me, I am sure, the very best they knew, but never seemed to give any permanent help. A change of climate was advised again and again for different troubles, until I lost all faith that materia medica could do anything for me. I could not take medicine, since a second dose of almost any kind would act like poison. I tried electricity, baths, and almost every form of treatment. After spending two weeks in a hygienic sanitarium I was told I must have a tonic, but since I could not take it in the form of medicine, I was advised to go to a more bracing climate. So I went to Michigan and was better for a time, but after two years became worse than I had ever been. Doctors said I had got all the good out of that climate and would better go to a more bracing one.
At this time while talking of my condition to a lady who advised Christian Science, I said, "No one need tell me I have not heart trouble and liver trouble." She replied, "You ought not to have." I went to my room repeating what she had said, and thought, This is the most sensible thing I ever heard a Christian Scientist say.
