When my new husband’s friend invited us to join him and his partner for a 12-day trip on their sailboat, I thought, “What an adventure!” But I was a bit apprehensive, too. I didn’t know either of our hosts, with whom we would be residing nonstop during the trip, and I am not a good swimmer. Also, I had been having trouble with my legs, hip, and back, which made movement difficult.
At the time, I didn’t notice that the symptoms I was experiencing were the very same ones my cousin and a couple of my co-workers had been describing in talking about their hip problems. All three had eventually had hip surgery, and my cousin, who was a nurse, had also described the surgery in some detail to me.
In her book Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Floating with the popular current of mortal thought without questioning the reliability of its conclusions, we do what others do, believe what others believe, and say what others say. Common consent is contagious, and it makes disease catching” (p. 228).
