I was healed eight years ago of rheumatism, by reading Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. The disease began in the early summer, the first symptoms being swelling of the upper and lower limbs. The first physician who treated me thought it was a dropsical condition, but afterward decided it was rheumatism. Not receiving any help from the medicine he gave me, I went to another physician, who treated me for many weeks. He frequently changed the remedies, but I continued to grow worse, and more and more helpless.
The idleness which this condition imposed was a great cross, and as I felt my helplessness increasing I grew more and more discouraged and disheartened. I was treated by four regular physicians, and some others, besides using baths, outward applications, and home remedies of various kinds; all without any result, except that some of the medicines deranged my stomach. I finally came to the conclusion that medicine could do nothing for me and gave it all up. For some time I had a feeling of lack, a desire to search all the time for something that would satisfy me mentally and spiritually. In my gropings in the dark, I read on many subjects, but found only fragmentary ideas that I could accept.
In this state I was introduced to a Christian Scientist and we became friends. She loaned me some literature on the subject of Christian Science, which interested me and seemed to appease and satisfy the mental and spiritual hunger. The Scientist said to me, "Don't worry about your physical condition. If you gain the spiritual understanding, you will be healed." I first read a Christian Science Journal and some tracts, then was presented with a copy of Science and Health. This was the latter part of March. In May I was greatly improved, so free, indeed, that I learned to ride a bicycle without difficulty or lameness. When I began to improve the healing was rapid, and I could do something nearly every day which I could not have done the day before. The joints of my hands, which had been so enlarged, soon regained their normal size, and I have never had a suggestion of the trouble since. From the time the disease appeared until the time of my healing was ten months. My health, which had never been very good from childhood, has steadily improved since I became a student of Christian Science, and several minor difficulties, which had troubled me for years, have entirely disappeared.
