On page 186 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "If mortal mind knew how to be better, it would he better. Since it must believe in something besides itself, it enthrones matter as deity." The medical profession is slowly admitting the fact that more and more of the dogma which had been handed down by our forbears in the therapeutic world as something substantial and dependable, has been proved valueless; and year after year physicians are striving to learn of new remedial agencies, in the hope that they will be better able to combat disease as manifested on the body. More and more, however, are they growing away from drugs and trying to approach and cure disease through the human mind.
In current medical literature we occasionally read about a psychotherapeutic subject being added to the curriculum of some college, or that a college is going to be opened to teach the cure of disease through the activities of the mind, thus showing that the medical profession recognizes and admits that at least some diseases and some cases must be approached through mental processes. Year after year their knowledge along the lines of sickness and disease, resulting from a wrong mental attitude on the part of both patient and physician, is growing and broadening, and today the doctors admit that not a few diseases are imaginary on the part of the patient. They also admit that many of the so-called nervous and mental disorders, as well as some other diseases, are but different phases of thought manifested upon the body, in which the patient presents a symptom complex peculiar to a designated disease. Cases presenting a complex differing from the symptomatology of so-called known diseases are classed as new diseases or as variations of those already classified.
The medical profession now freely admits that certain mental processes present abnormal phenomena upon the body, and that some of the common manifestations which are said to be induced by things tasted, touched, seen, smelled, or thought about, or by some mental disturbance, are palpitation of the heart, changes in temperature of the body, temporary inability to move, fainting, imperfect speech, hair falling out, different forms of paralysis and nervousness, stomach, intestinal, and kidney disorders, and some skin diseases. Belief in the mental origin of these discords, and many other recognized conditions which are given distinctive names as disease or as symptoms of disease, is supported in books written by some of the best medical authorities in the world.
