A number of years ago, while at the shore, I fell and broke my arm. When my husband asked me what I intended to do, I answered that I should have a surgeon; that if by morning conditions were no better we would go to the city, but in the mean time we would know that "divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (Science and Health, p. 494). At six o'clock that evening, while sitting on the hotel piazza, we heard some one remark that a surgeon had just gone into the office. Immediately we followed, and I asked him to examine my arm.
He led me to the window and began manipulating the arm, while I tried to realize the truth that there is no sensation in matter. The result was that the examination as well as the temporary setting made that night was painless. The surgeon said that the arm would probably swell more during the night, and I would suffer a good deal of pain. When he left I found that I was conscious of considerable fear, so I called up a Christian Science practitioner and asked for help. I rested perfectly during the night, and in the morning all swelling had gone.
At six o'clock that evening the surgeon came to set the bone. The dinner bell rang as he entered the hotel, so I asked him not to give me an anesthetic and thus spoil dinner for so many people. He was willing to make the attempt, although insisting that I would be unable to stand the pain. No pain was felt, however, and in fifteen minutes the surgeon had departed and I was at dinner. The next evening he called to ask if the arm had caused me any suffering since it was set. "No," I answered; "but there has been the queerest sensation all day. It has felt as if the two ends of the bone were rubbing against each other. It stopped at five o'clock, but up to that time the movement has been incessant. What do you suppose is the matter?" He gave me the most astonished look and said flatly, "You never felt any such thing." At his request I kept the splint on for three weeks. When he removed it the hand was very stiff and seemed lifeless, so he began to instruct me concerning massage, but I told him I had done all in his line that I could, as I was a Scientist.
