Several years ago I came home from business one day with a severe chill, and a doctor diagnosed the case as ptomaine poisoning. I became very ill and was unable to go to business for four years. During the first year my case became so complicated that it was called at various stages rheumatism, malignant growth, and blood disease. Three specialists and one regular physician were called into consultation, and an operation was decided upon. After my return from the hospital I was in such a weakened condition that I was not expected to live.
I became convinced from this experience that the case had been wrongly diagnosed, so another famous specialist was consulted and the course of treatment prescribed was carefully followed for the next two years with no apparent results. Then I decided to move into the country in search of health, and the same line of treatment was continued for three months, when it became necessary to operate, as an abscess on the spine had grown to a dangerous size. After the operation a different course of treatment was followed for nine months; then a spine specialist, finding an operation was impracticable, provided a sling to hold my head in a position to relieve the pain. I lived in a sitting posture for three weeks, but even with an opiate at frequent intervals was able to sleep only half an hour out of every twenty-four hours. When the brace ordered to take the place of the sling was put on, I was advised by the specialist never to take it off or I would suffer the consequences; but on the third evening the agony from it was so intense that I asked my wife to pray for death.
At this extreme moment a neighbor called with a friend who is a Christian Scientist, and observing my condition the Scientist asked permission to read from Science and Health. She also read to me from the Bible, explaining as she read. When she left she said I would have a good night's sleep. I told her I never slept without an opiate, but did fall asleep and only awoke to turn over. This was the first few hours' sleep I had had in four weeks. The lady told me not to wear the brace, as God never made man to wear anything like that; so I did not put it on again. A Christian Science practitioner treated me for two weeks, and then I was practically a well man. Wounds which had been open for three years are completely healed, and I am now going to business every day a perfectly well man, and much happier than ever before.
