I am a homeopathic physician. My health broke down under the strain of a large practice, and I was obliged to give it all up, with no hope of ever being able to resume it. I had the advice of several of the best physicians and surgeons in the West, and all gave the same opinion I had one surgical operation performed, and needed another, but was not able to go through with it, and the future looked very gloomy to me. The diseases with which I was afflicted seem legion to me, as I now look back upon that time. I had such severe nervous trouble that I could not bear to have any one near me but my own family, I could not go away from home at all, and lived in constant dread I suffered so from neuralgia that I begged many times for anything to put me out of my misery. After the pain ceased (and no medicine would relieve it in the least), it would leave me so weak that for days, and sometimes weeks, I would not be able to leave my bed. I also had organic heart trouble, kidney disorder, and a growth in the bowels. Truly I was in a sad state.
I had heard about Christian Science healing, and often wished that I might have the kind that Christ used I often prayed for health, and my many friends prayed for me, for I had been a member of an orthodox church since I was twelve years old. When I had given up all medicine as useless in my case, my sister suggested that I try Christian Science. I asked my husband, who is also a physician, if he had any objections. He said he had none, but that he knew it would do me no good. I told him we both knew that medicine would do no good, and said I was going to try Christian Science. I never had but two attacks of neuralgia after I began the treatment, and the other troubles have all vanished into their native nothingness.
My healing was slow, but I am thankful that it was, for had it been instantaneous I should have gone back to the practice of medicine, with no knowledge of Christian Science. I read "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" many, many times, but beyond the chapters on Prayer and Atonement and Eucharist, I could get little out of it. I realized to my sorrow that it is apparently much harder for one intrenched in medical knowledge to grasp the truth, than for others; but I kept on reading and began to see more clearly, and then my sister came to visit me, and I asked her many questions. I was often afraid that she would give me up; but she never did, though it must have taxed her patience sorely. I used to be almost ready to give myself up, but I could not go back to my old belief, and I had a hope, down deep in my heart, that some time the truth would be made plain to me; and it was. Though there are many things that I wish I might understand better, I know that God is man's Life, and that His healing is for us as much as for the disciples of old.
