April 28, 1901, M.D., professor of Gynecology in the Chicago Homœopathic Medical College, published in the Chicago Tribune an interesting and thoughtful article under the heading, "Effect on Sick of Unfavorable Thought Atmospheres," which is well worthy of serious perusal and study by thinking people, especially in view of the recent events resulting from the assassination of President McKinley. It will be observed that Dr. Leavitt's paper was written several months previous to that sad occurrence.
Dr. Leavitt says:—
"That some deleterious influence is experienced by patients suffering from disease, when there is widespread anxiety concerning their welfare, has impressed itself on my conviction. When a man or woman of prominence falls ill the fact is heralded from one end of the country to the other; suspicions of the innocuous nature of the attack are encouraged; meaningless incidents are misinterpreted; rumors of recent deterioration of health preceding the acute attack are spread; and public expectation of a fatal outcome is perseveringly whetted. This is the public history of a case. The private history embraces a primary period of slight physical disturbance, giving occasion for no alarm, succeeded gradually by deepening symptoms which appallingly often ultimate in death. Such an experience appears to be one of the penalties of eminence. President Garfield was wounded by the bullet of the assassin Guiteau and the greatest turbulence ensued throughout the land; all were profoundly shocked and grave fears were entertained even by the most hopeful. For days and weeks frequent bulletins were issued by the surgical attendants, setting forth the most hopeful features of the case; but these were more than counterbalanced by press and individual opinions which were uniformly adverse. We know full well the outcome. He had a serious wound, but it had no business to be fatal in a robust constitution like his, and in all probability would have had a favorable termination in one toward whom there had not been turned so great a tide of unwholesome thought. Roscoe Conkling suffered a suppurative inflammation of the middle ear, such as the ordinary medical practitioner often encounters, but it could not be persuaded to proceed in the ordinary way. Hardly had the symptoms of disease set in before grave fears were expressed and the course of the case soon assumed a perverse aspect.
"The recent illness of the lamented General Harrison is another case in point. The initial and early symptoms were not alarming; but public anxiety was again aroused, and the fond hopes and courageous fortitude of those near him were not adequate to overcome the fell influence which cast about the victim its own noxious atmosphere. His age was declared to constitute his doom; and yet he was but sixty-seven years old. I had a bad case of pneumonia not long ago in a feeble man of eighty-one, which had a most happy termination. But great men and women easily die in these days. It has become true that an attack of serious illness in a person of prominence in most instances has a fatal ending. The man of no reputation stands a far better chance for life. One notable exception to this rule may be cited in the case of Mrs. Ballington Booth, whose life was menaced by a grave heart lesion a few years ago. The favorable influences at work in her case were the feeling that she could not be spared and the courageous hope of her followers inspired by prayer in her behalf."
In too many instances it is true, as Dr. Leavitt says, that an attack of serious illness in a person of prominence has a fatal ending. This has been remarked and commented upon by others than Dr. Leavitt, yet public opinion is dormant on the subject. So much so, that, in every case of serious illness of a prominent person, particularly if he occupies a conspicuous official position, the public continue to demand specific information as to the condition of the patient down to minutest details; and this information must come at frequent intervals from the sick-room at the hands of the attending physicians. In the case of Mr. McKinley this was especially true. The intensity of public feeling was so great that the attending physicians and surgeons would have been severely censured had they not complied with this public demand. In obedience to this demand, frequent bulletins were issued and the public kept fully advised as to all the symptoms—or supposed symptoms—of the President's case.
Dr. Leavitt truly says also, that "the last decade or two have wrought a change in our conception of the power of unseen forces. We have learned that 'thoughts are things' just as truly as the drugs we administer and the instruments we handle; and that they possess a tremendous potency for good and ill."
As to the remedy for this state of things Dr. Leavitt has this to say:—
"In seeking a cure for the great evil which forms my present thesis we should not forget the importance of a campaign of education. Men and women must be taught to recognize the energies which reside within them. The conscience of the average person will strongly protest against the exercise of a recognized faculty in the direction of injury.
"Then, instead of exaggerating the existing pathological conditions of a sufferer and awakening in the public mind evil forebodings and groundless fears which may immeasurably complicate matters and do him an unspeakable injustice, the public press should join in minimizing the inimical features and establishing ground for hope.
"When a member of our own family is ill the physician and friends most industriously seek to enwrap the patient in an impenetrable atmosphere of hope and good cheer under the conviction that to do otherwise is to expose the sick one to unnecessary danger. The nation, in truth the world, is but one large family, each member of which ought to be guaranteed every encouragement and opportunity to acquire and maintain health."
To Christian Scientists it is gratifying that physicians of eminence and experience like Dr. Leavitt should be awakening to facts that have long been recognized by the former as self-evident. There is no doubt that the conditions mentioned by Dr. Leavitt are deleterious. There is little doubt that these conditions have brought fatal results in some cases.
The multiplied instances of fatality, under the circumstances named, should of themselves be sufficient to call attention to the subject and set in motion serious inquiry and investigation. Public opinion should not remain in a state of perpetual somnambulism upon such weighty matters. Those who occupy positions which give the public a right to look to them for light upon these grave questions have a duty to perform. Upon the medical profession this duty would seem peculiarly to rest. Dr. Leavitt wisely says that here is cause for a campaign of education. If the cause exists, surely the subject is of sufficient importance to warrant the immediate inauguration of such a campaign.
Here is presented a great opportunity for the medical profession. Will they avail themselves of it? And why might not theologians take a useful hand in the campaign? The saving to the world of great and serviceable lives is a good thing, and it is the special province of theology to do good. There are those among the theologians—and their number is rapidly increasing—who think it quite as important to build and maintain character for good work in this world, or this phase of existence, as to fit souls for the life beyond the grave. Should not this class, at least, enter heartily into the proposed campaign? Then, as Dr. Leavitt suggests, the newspapers and periodicals of the world should at once be enlisted on the side of this proposed reform. They, in a way, may be made the final arbiters of the question, for if they cease to publish the bulletins, the public cannot have their desire—or curiosity, as the case may be—gratified. Once made aware of that, they would quietly acquiesce, the more so when they came to understand that the effect of their desire or curiosity was injurious to the subject thereof, and might even prove fatal.
It is needless to say that Christian Scientists would most sincerely favor such a campaign. Christian Science exists for the purpose of benefiting mankind. It desires to see inaugurated any and every movement looking in that direction. To use one of its peculiar expressions, it favors every "improved belief," for improvement in belief will lead, step by step, to the ultimate harmony which the best application of divine Truth will establish.
It is a grave mistake to suppose that the sole purpose of Christian Science is to build up a new religion or a new system of curing sickness. Its purpose is humanitarian. Its aim is to bring better and still better things to mankind. In fine, to aid mankind in availing themselves of the infinite and boundless blessings which God, "in the beginning," placed at their disposal for the mere asking.
As has so often and so truly been said—quoting from the inspired and inspiring words of Isaiah—Christian Science comes in the name of Christ-Truth, "To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. ... To give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
A worthy mission truly! A heavenly purpose! and should not all good people join hands in such a mission—such a purpose?
More than a quarter of a century since, the author of the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,"—Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy,—foreseeing the conditions which are now so troubling the world, gave utterance, in said book, to the following purpose and hope which inspired and spurred her to the great task of alleviating untoward human conditions:—
"The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own beliefs, and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs who to-day hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea, and the wilderness; but I pressed on, through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall, and the rights of man to freedom are fully known and acknowledged."
She closes the preface to the text-book thus broadly and tenderly:—
"In the spirit of Christ's charity,—as one who 'hopeth all things, endureth all things,' and is joyful to bear consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick,—she commits these pages to honest seekers for Truth in this and every age."
These sentiments index the deeply humanitarian and spiritual intent of the text-book, and that its intent has been faithfully carried out, the subsequent history of what that book and its author have accomplished richly testifies. Let the sincere inquirer inform himself of that history, and his research will be rewarded with an abundant harvest of substantial—nay of startling—facts.
The remedy for the diseased state of the public mind upon the subject to which this article relates, is found in the Christian Science text-book, the system erected upon it and the work accomplished through it, and the continuous labor of its author on the lines laid down by it.
Let those who truly desire to know both the cause of that disease and the remedy for it, turn their attention to the earnest and intelligent study of this text-book, and out of our own experience of more than fifteen years, and out of the experience of thousands of others, of longer or shorter duration, we bespeak for them a satisfactory answer to any queries which may now trouble their minds.
