Chapter II (2)

"Baboons," continued the old lady, "are among a farmer's worst enemies; they steal and destroy and menace all the year around. But, for all that, there are many farmers who will not shoot or trap them. And these, you will notice, are always farmers of a ripe age and sense shaped by experience. _They_ know, you may be sure. My stepsister's first husband, Shadrach van Guelder, shot at baboons once, and was so frightened afterwards that he was afraid to be alone in the dark."

There was a story toward, and no one moved.

"There were many Kafirs on his farm, which you have not seen," pursued the Vrouw Grobelaar, adjusting her voice to narrative pitch. "It was on the fringe of the Drakensberg, and many spurs of hill, divided by deep kloofs like gashes, descended on to it. So plenty of water came down, and the cattle were held from straying by the rocks, on one side at any rate. The Kafirs had their kraals dotted all about the land; and as they were of the kind that work, my stepsister's husband suffered them to remain and grow their little patches of mealies, while they worked for him in between. He was, of course, a cattle Boer, as all of our family have always been, but here were so many Kafirs to be had for nothing that he soon commenced to plow great spaces of land and sow valuable crops. There was every prospect that we would make very much money out of that farm; for corn always sells, even when cattle are going for only seven pounds apiece, and Shadrach van Guelder was very cheerful about it.

"But when a farmer weighs an ungrown crop, you will always find that there is something or other he does not take into account. He tells off the weather and the land and the Kafirs and the water on his fingers, and forgets to bend down his thumb to represent God--or something. Shadrach van Guelder lifted up his eyes to the hills from whence came the water, but it was not until the green corn was six inches high that he saw that there came with it baboons--armies and republics of them; more baboons than he had thought to exist. They swooped down on his sprouting lands, and rioted, ate, and rooted, trampled and wantoned, with that kind of bouncing devilishness that not even a Kafir can correctly imitate. In one night they undid all his work on five sown morgen of fat land, and with the first wink of the sun in the east they were back again in their kopjes, leaving devastation and foulness wherever they passed.

"It was my stepsister's husband that stood on one leg and cursed like a Jew. He was wrathful as a Hollander that has been drinking water, and what did not help to make him content was the fact that hardly anything would avail to protect his lands. Once the baboons had tasted the sweetness of the young corn, they would come again and again, camping in the kloofs overhead as long as anything remained for them, like a deaf guest. But, for all that, he had no notion of leaving them to plunder at their ease. The least one can do with an unwelcome visitor is to make him uncomfortable; and he sent to certain kraals on the farm for two old Kafirs he had remarked who had the appearance of cunning old men.

"They came and squatted before him, squirming and shuffling, as Kafirs do when a white man talks to them. One was quite a common kind of Kafir, gone a little gray with age, a tuft of white wool on his chin and little patches of it here and there on his head. But the other was a small, twisted, yellow man, with no hair at all, and eyes like little blots of fire on a charred stick; and his arms were so long and gnarled and lean that he had a bestial look, like a laborious animal.

"'The baboons have killed the crop on the lower lands,' said Shadrach, smacking his leg with his sjambok. 'If they are not checked, they will destroy all the corn on this farm. What is the way to go about it?'

"The little yellow man was biting his lips and turning a straw in his hands, and gave no answer; but the other spoke.

"'I am from Shangaanland,' he said, 'and there, when the baboons plague us, we have a way with them, a good way.'

"He sneered sideways at his yellow companion as he spoke, and the look which the latter returned to him was a thing to shrink from.

"'What is this way?' demanded Shadrach.

"'You must trap a baboon,' explained the old Kafir,--'a leading baboon, for choice, who has a lot to say in the government of the troop; and then you must skin him, and let him go again. The others will travel miles and miles as soon as they see him, and never come back again.'

"'It makes me sick to think of it,' said Shadrach. 'Surely you know some other way of scaring them?'

"The old Kafir shook his head slowly, but the yellow man ceased to smile and play with the straw, and spoke:

"'I do not believe in that way, baas. A Shangaan baboon'--he grinned at his companion--'is more easily frightened than those of the Drakensberg. I am of the bushmen, and I know. If you flay one of those up yonder, the others will make war, and where one came before, ten will come every night. A baboon is not a fat, lazy Kafir; one must be careful with him!'

"'How would _you_ drive them away, then?' asked Shadrach.

"The yellow man shuffled his hands in the dust, squatting on his heels. There, there! See--the baboon in the yard is doing the very same thing!

"'If I were the baas,' said the yellow man, 'I would turn out the young men to walk round the fields at night, with buckets to hit with sticks, and make a noise. And I--well, I am of the bushmen.' He scratched himself and smiled emptily.

"'Yes, yes?' demanded Shadrach. He knew the wonderful ways of the bushmen with some animals.

"'I do not know if anything can be done,' said the yellow man, 'but, if the baas is willing, I can go up to the rocks and try.'

"'How?'

"But he could tell nothing. None of these wizards that have charms to subdue the beasts can tell you anything about it. A Hottentot will smell the air and say what cattle are near, but if you bid him tell you how he does it, he giggles like a fool and is ashamed.

"'I do not know if anything can be done,' the yellow man repeated. 'I cannot promise the baas, but I can try.'

"'Well, try, then,' ordered Shadrach, and went away to make the necessary arrangements to have the young Kafirs in the fields that night.

"They did as he bade, and the noise was loathsome--enough to frighten anything with an ear in its head. The Kafirs did not relish the watch in the dark at first, but when they found that their work was only to thump buckets and howl, they came to do it with zest, and roared and banged till you would have thought a judgment must descend on them. The baboons heard it, sure enough, and came down, after a while, to see what was going on. They sat on their rumps outside the circle of Kafirs, as quiet as people in a church, and watched the niggers drumming and capering as though it were a show for their amusement. Then they went back, leaving the crops untouched, but pulling all the huts in one kraal to pieces as they passed. It was the kraal of the old white-tufted Shangaan, as Shadrach learned afterwards.

"Shadrach was pleased that the row had saved his corn, and next day he gave the twisted man a lump of tobacco. The man tucked it into his cheek and smiled, wrinkling his nose and looking at the ground.

"'Did you get speech of the baboons last night among the rocks?' Shadrach asked.

"The other shook his head, grinning. 'I am old,' he said. 'They pay no attention to me, but I will try again. Perhaps, before long, they will listen.'

"'When they do that,' said Shadrach, 'you shall have five pounds of tobacco and five bottles of dop.'

"The man was squatting on his heels all this time at Shadrach's feet, and his hard fingers, like claws, were picking at the ground. Now he put out a hand and began fingering the laces of the farmer's shoes with a quick, fluttering movement that Shadrach saw with a spasm of terror. It was so exactly the trick of a baboon, so entirely a thing animal and unhuman.

"'You are more than a baboon yourself,' he said. 'Let go of my leg. Let go, I say! Curse you, get away--get away from me!'

"The creature had caught his ankle with both hands, the fingers, hard and shovel-ended, pressing into his flesh.

"'Let go!' cried Shadrach, and struck at the man with his sjambok.

"The man bounded on all fours to evade the blow, but it took him in the flank, and he was human--or Kafir--again in a moment, and rubbed himself and whimpered quite naturally.

"'Let me see no more of your baboon tricks,' stormed Shadrach, the more angry because he had been frightened. 'Keep them for your friends among the rocks. And now, be off to your kraal.'

"That night again the Kafirs drummed all about the green corn, and sang in chorus the song which the mountain Kafirs sing when the new moon shows like a paring from a finger-nail of gold. It is a long and very loud song, with stamping of feet every minute, and again the baboons came down to see and listen. The Kafirs saw them, many hundreds of humped black shapes, and sang the louder, while the crowd of beasts grew ever denser as fresh parties came down and joined it. It was opposite the rocks on which they sat that the singing-men collected, roaring their long verses and clattering on the buckets, doubtless not without some intention to jeer at and flout the baffled baboons that watched them in such a silence. It was drooping now to the pit of night, and things were barely seen as shapes, when from higher up the line, where the guardians of the crops were sparser, there came a discord of shrieks.

"'The baboons are through the line!' they cried; and it was on that instant that the great watching army of apes came leaping in a charge on the main force of the Kafirs. Oh, but that was a wild, a haunting thing! Great, bull-headed dog-baboons, with naked fangs and clutching hands alert for murder; bounding mothers of squealing litters that led their young in a dash to the fight; terrible, lean old bitches that made for the men when others went for the corn,--they swooped like a flood of horror on the aghast Kafirs, biting, tearing, bounding through the air like uncouth birds; and in one second the throng of the Kafirs melted before them, and they were amid the corn.

"Eight men they killed by rending, and of the others, some sixty, there was not one but had his wound--some bite to the bone, some gash where iron fingers had clutched and torn their way through skin and flesh. When they came to Shadrach and woke him wearily, with the breathless timidity of beaten men, it was already too late to go with a gun to the corn-lands. The baboons had contented themselves with small plunder after their victory, and withdrew orderly to the hills; and, even as Shadrach came to the door of the homestead, he saw the last of their marshaled line, black against the sky, moving swiftly towards the kloofs.

"He flung out his hands like a man in despair, with never a word to ease his heart, and then the old Shangaan Kafir stood up before him. He had the upper part of his right arm bitten to the bone and worried, and now he cast back the blanket from his shoulder and held out the quivering wound to his master.

"'It was the chief of the baboons that gave me this,' he said, 'and he is a baboon only in the night. He came through the ranks of them, bounding like a boulder on a steep hillside, and it was for me that his teeth were bared. So, when he hung by his teeth to my arm and tore and snarled, I drew my nails across his back, that the baas should know the truth.'

"'What is this madness?' cried Shadrach.

"'No madness, but simple deviltry,' answered the Shangaan, and there came a murmur of support from the Kafirs about him. 'The leader of the baboons is Naqua, and it was he who taught them the trick they played us to-night.'

"'Naqua?' repeated Shadrach, feeling cold and weak.

"'The bushman,' explained the old man; 'the yellow man with the long, lean arms who gave false counsel to the baas.'

"'It is true,' came the chorus of the Kafirs; 'it is true. We saw it.'

"Shadrach pulled himself together and raised a hand to the lintel of the door to steady himself.

"'Fetch me Naqua!' he ordered, and a pair of them went upon that errand. But they came back empty: Naqua was not at his hut, and none had news of him.

"Shadrach dismissed the Kafirs to patch their wounds, and at sun-up he went down to the lands where the eight dead Kafirs still lay amid the corn, to see what traces remained of the night's work. He had hoped to find a clue in the tracks, but the feet of the Kafirs and the baboons were so mingled that the ground was dumb, and on the grass there remained, of course, no sign of the baboons' return. He was no fool, my stepsister's first husband, and since a wild and belly-quaking tale was the only one that offered, he was not ready to cast it aside till a better one were found. At any rate, it was against Naqua that his preparations were directed.

"He had seven guns in his house for which ammunition could be found, and from among all the Kafirs on the land he chose a half-dozen Zulus, who, as you know, will always rather fight than eat. These were only too ready to face the baboons again, since they were to have guns in their hands; and a kind of ambush was devised. They were to lie amid the corn so as to command the flank of the beasts, and Shadrach was to lie in the middle of them, and would give the signal when to commence firing by a shot from his own rifle. There was built, too, a pile of brushwood lying on straw soaked in oil, and this one of them was to put a light to as soon as the shooting began.

"It was dark when they took their places, and then commenced a long and anxious watch amid the corn, when every bush that creaked was an alarm, and every small beast of the veldt that squealed set hearts to thumping. From where he lay on his stomach, with his rifle before him, Shadrach could see the line or ridge of rocks over which the baboons must come, dark against a sky only just less dark; and, with his eyes fixed on this, he waited. Afterwards he said that it was not the baboons he waited for, but the yellow man Naqua, and he had in his head an idea that all the evil and pain that ever was, and all the sin to be, had a home in that bushman. So a man hates an enemy.

"They came at last. Five of them were suddenly seen on the top of the rocks, standing erect and peering round for a trap; but Shadrach and his men lay very still, and soon one of these scouts gave a call, and then was heard the pat! pat! of hard feet as the body of them came up. There was not light enough to tell one from another, except by size, and as they trooped down amid the corn, Shadrach lay with his finger throbbing on his trigger, peering among them. But he could see nothing except the mass of their bodies, and, waiting till the main part of them was past him, so that he could have a shot at them as they came back, should it happen that they retired at once, he thrust forward his rifle, aimed into the brown, and fired.

"Almost in the same instant the rifles of the Zulus spoke, and a crackle of shots ran up and down their line. Then there was a flare of light as the bonfire was lit, and they could see the army of baboons in a fuss of panic dashing to and fro. They fired again and again into the tangle of them, and the beasts commenced to scatter and flee, and Shadrach and his men rose to their full height and shot faster, and the hairy army vanished into the darkness, defeated.

"There was a guffaw of laughter from the Zulus, but, ere it was finished, a shout from Shadrach brought their rifles leaping up again. The baboons were coming back: a line of them was breaking from the darkness beyond the range of the fire, racing in great leaps towards the men. As they came into the light they were a sight to terrify a host, all big tuskers, and charging without a sound. Shadrach, aiming by instinct only, dropped two as they came, and the next instant they were upon him. He heard the grunt of the Zulu next him as a huge beast leaped against his chest and bore him down, and there were screams from another. Then something heavy and swift drove at him like a bullet, and he clubbed his rifle. As the beast flew, with hands and feet drawn in for the grapple, he hewed at it with the butt and smashed it to the ground. The stock struck on bone, and he felt it crush and fail, and there was the thing at his feet.

"How they broke the charge, with what a frenzy of battle they drove the baboons from them, none of the four who spoke again could ever tell; but it must have been very soon after Shadrach clubbed his rifle that the beasts wavered, were beaten, and fled screaming, and the farmer found himself leaning on his weapon, and a great Zulu, shining with sweat, talking to him.

"'Never have I had such a fight,' the Zulu was saying, 'and never may I hope for such another! The baas is a great chief; I watched him.'

"Something was picking at Shadrach's boots, and he drew back with a shudder from the form that lay at his feet.

"'Bring a stick from the fire,' he ordered. 'I want to see this--this baboon.'

"As the man went, he ran a cartridge into the breech of his rifle, and, when the burning stick was brought, he turned over the body with his foot.

"A yellow face mowed up at him, and pale-yellow eyes sparkled dully.

"'Tck!' clicked the Zulu, in surprise. 'It is the bushman Naqua. No, baas,' as Shadrach cocked his rifle, 'do not shoot him. Keep him and chain him to a post; he will like that less.'

"'I shoot!' answered Shadrach, and shattered the evil grin that gleamed in the face on the ground with a quick shot.

"And, as I told you, my stepsister's first husband, Shadrach van Guelder, was afraid to be alone in the dark after that night," concluded the Vrouw Grobelaar. "It is ill shooting baboons, Frikkie."

"I'm not afraid," retorted Frikkie; and the baboon in the yard rattled his chain and cursed shrilly.

ONE HUNDRED CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES

BY RICHARD C. CABOT, M.D.

What are we to think of the miraculous cures reported in Christian Science "experience meetings" and in the columns of the Christian Science journals? Are we to consider them as genuine and accurate records of fact, or are we to reject them as fabrications?

It would be easy to deal with the subject by driving Christian Scientists into a corner and logically refuting their claims; for if it is true, as stated on page 120 of "Science and Health," that "health is not a condition of matter but of mind, _nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on this subject_," of course "the material senses" cannot be trusted when they testify that cancer, consumption, broken bones, or locomotor ataxia have been cured by Christian Science. There is no such thing as the diagnosis of these diseases without reliance on the testimony of "the material senses."

But although it is easy thus to refute the Christian Scientists, such refutation satisfies no one and proves nothing except their logical bankruptcy. The victory over their weak-kneed theory is a barren one, for is it not notorious that people's practice may be better than their theory? Skill in logic and in the accurate statement of one's principles may be very slight, and yet the successful application of these misstated or absurd principles may be a fact and a blessing.

I shall therefore undertake to examine and to discuss Christian Science cures, not from the point of view of logic or consistency, but by a study of the written testimonials and of my own experience gained in the attempt to verify the claims of those who pronounce themselves cured.

Some years ago I followed up, so far as was possible through personal interviews and through letters, all the Christian Science "cures" of which I could hear any details in or near Boston. Within a short time I have returned to the subject and studied one hundred of the cases recorded in the recent volumes of the _Christian Science Journal_ under the caption, "Testimonies from the Field." Putting together this evidence and comparing it with my experience regarding the accuracy of my own patients' statements about their own diseases, past and present, my conclusions are, first, that most Christian Science cures are probably genuine; but, second, that they are not the cures of organic diseases.

In my own personal researches into Christian Science "cures," I have never found one in which there was any good evidence that cancer, consumption, or any other organic disease had been arrested or banished. The diagnosis was usually either made by the patient himself or was an interpretation at second or third hand of what a doctor was supposed to have said.

As I have followed up the reported cures of "cancer" and other malignant tumors, I have found either that they were not tumors at all, or that they were assumed to be malignant without any microscopic examination. In other words, the diagnosis was never based upon any proper evidence.

I have never seen any reason to believe that lies were told by the persons concerned. Their claims were the result of mistake or intellectual mistiness, and not of intentional deception. The cures no doubt took place as they asserted, but they were not cures of organic disease.

Now, before going further, something must be said in explanation of the terms "organic" and "functional" which I shall use throughout this paper. By organic disease is meant one that causes serious, perhaps permanent deterioration of the tissues of the body; by functional disease is meant one due to a perverted action of approximately normal organs. Functional diseases are no more imaginary than an ungovernable temper or a balky horse is imaginary. They are often the source of acute and long-continued suffering; indeed, I believe that there is no class of diseases that gives rise to so much keen suffering; but still they do not seriously damage the organs and tissues of the body. Organic disease, on the other hand, may run its course accompanied by much less suffering, but the destruction of tissue is serious, perhaps irreparable.

The sharpness of this distinction between organic and functional troubles is somewhat blurred by the fact that a functional or nervous affection, such as insomnia, may lead, both directly and through loss of appetite, to a loss of weight or to a considerable deterioration in the body tissues. Here we have what might be called _organic disease produced by functional disease_, and such organic disease as this is often cured by Christian Science or by some more rational method of mental healing. We must also recognize the fact that there are a few rare diseases which we cannot certainly assign either to the organic or the functional class. Yet, despite these reservations, the distinction which the words indicate is still a clear one in the vast majority of cases.

_Analysis of 100 "Cures"_

Having made this definition of terms, I will go on to present herewith a table in which I have analyzed one hundred consecutive "testimonies" from the _Christian Science Journal_. I have grouped these cases in four classes:

First, seventy-two cases in which I find, on careful study, reasonably good evidence for the diagnosis of functional or nervous disorder.

Second, seven cases of what appears to be organic disease.

Third, eleven cases very difficult to class, but probably belonging in the functional group.

Fourth, ten cases, regarding the diagnosis of which no reasonable conjecture can be made.

These cases, arranged in the first three groups, are as follows:

GROUP I--FUNCTIONAL OR NERVOUS DISORDERS.

"Nervous trouble" 17 cases
"Trouble with eyes" 12 cases
"Kidney and bladder trouble" 7 cases
"An abnormal growth" 5 cases
"Stomach trouble" 4 cases
"Lung trouble" 4 cases
"Rheumatism" 3 cases
Drug habit 3 cases
Tobacco habit 2 cases
Alcoholism 2 cases
"Asthmatic trouble" 2 cases
"Irritable disposition" 1 case
"The blues" 1 case
Headache 1 case
"Hardening of the spine" 1 case
"Spinal trouble" 1 case
"Weak back" 1 case
"Sciatic trouble" 1 case
"Chest and throat trouble" 1 case
"Blindness" 1 case
"Bowel trouble" 1 case
"Heart trouble" 1 case

Total 72 cases

GROUP II--APPARENTLY ORGANIC DISEASES.

"Tuberculosis of bowels" 1 case
"Seventeen bruises, cuts and breaks" 1 case
Insanity 1 case
Locomotor ataxia 1 case
Loose elbow-joint 1 case
Necrosis of the jaw 1 case
Rupture 1 case

Total 7 cases

GROUP III--PROBABLY FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS.

"Lost use of the right limb" 1 case
"What seemed to be a malignant sore on the
face" 1 case
"Strangely obstinate malady of 20 years'
standing" 1 case
"An incurable disease" 1 case
"Serious abdominal trouble" 1 case
"Lung, spinal and hip trouble" (wore dark
glasses 20 years) 1 case
"Catarrhal, bowel and rheumatic trouble" 1 case
"Internal disorder of 15 years' standing" 1 case
"Heart, ovarian, and serious nervous
troubles" (8 years) 1 case
"Debility, constipation, gout, piles, and
prolapsus" 1 case
"Bright's disease, liver and lung complaint,
and other ailments too numerous to
mention" 1 case

Total 11 cases

Of the second group, that of cases of apparently organic disease, the case of insanity was taken out of an insane asylum by Christian Science friends, but apparently is still insane; the diseased jaw slowly recovered, as such cases sometimes do, without any treatment. The same is very possibly true of the case of tuberculosis of the bowels (peritoneum), though the diagnosis is not certain. The cuts, bruises, and breaks healed rather slowly under ordinary surgical treatment in a hospital. Of the locomotor ataxia, the rupture, and the loose elbow-joint, nothing more can be said without knowing whether the diagnoses were correct--a point on which no opinion can be formed, owing to the scantiness of the facts recorded.

_Unreliability of "Home-Made Diagnoses"_

In the analyses of these cases I am guided by my experience with the diagnoses naively given by patients entering my office for treatment--diagnoses based either upon their own unguided observation or upon what they suppose their own physician to have said to them. In such instances there is no possible motive for deception or for exaggeration; the patient is saying exactly what he believes; and yet, I have rarely found his statement to be even approximately correct. For example, when a patient comes to me with the statement that he has "kidney and bladder trouble," I generally find both the kidneys and the bladder sound. The patient has pain in his back in the region where he supposes his kidneys to be; he interprets his symptoms in the light of what he has read in the newspaper advertisements and what he has been told by his kind friends, and arrives at what is (to his mind) a perfectly solid conclusion. He has no doubts of the diagnosis, states it as a fact, and asks only for treatment.

So it is with patients coming for "spinal trouble," "hardening of the spine," "inflammation of the spine," or "spinal meningitis." They almost always turn out, on careful examination, to be suffering from some form of nervous prostration. In the interpretation of their sufferings and in the names which they attach to them they have been guided quite innocently by hearsay.

Similarly when patients come to me for what they call "heart trouble" and turn out on examination to be suffering from pain in the left side of the chest without any heart trouble at all, I accuse them of no deception but only of incapacity for the accurate appreciation of the value of evidence.

Certain other statements recur very often in the histories given in all good faith by patients, whether in the doctor's office or in a Christian Science experience meeting. I will quote some of these:

"I have had a great many doctors, and each has made a different diagnosis."

"I am suffering from a complication of diseases, Bright's disease, liver and lung complaint, and other ailments too numerous to mention."

"I have had a great many operations performed on me."

Experience shows us that when a person has had many doctors, many diagnoses, many "diseases," or many operations, he usually turns out to be suffering from nervous prostration or some other form of functional nervous trouble. For these troubles are just those which most often puzzle the physician, leading him to change his diagnosis and the patient to change his doctor very frequently. Again, it is just these functional nervous disorders which, affecting as they do every part of the body and every organ, give rise to the false idea of "many diseases"--an idea based on the patient's multitudinous sufferings.

Organic disease often runs its course accompanied by very little suffering, or with a very definite localization of the malady in one part of the body. The patient with a genuine complication of diseases does not often live to tell the story in a doctor's office or in a Christian Science experience meeting. In the majority of the reported cases the complication is in the patient's mind, not in his diseases.

For a similar reason the patient who has had "many operations" is usually one whose (nervous) sufferings are so manifold and so various that physicians are driven to seek relief by one measure after another, and finally by a variety of surgical procedures.

It is a striking fact that, as one listens to the recital of Christian Science "cures," one hears little or nothing of the great common organic diseases, such as arterio-sclerosis, phthisis, appendicitis--and still less of the common acute diseases, such as pneumonia, malaria, apoplexy. Chronic nervous (that is, mental) disease is the Christian Scientist's stock in trade.

_Similarity of Christian Science Testimony_

No one can study the printed records of Christian Science cures without noting a remarkable similarity running through many hundreds of them, a similarity in style, in phraseology, and in the general structure of the letters.

For example, Mrs. Eddy's name was mentioned _within five lines of the end_ in fifty-six out of seventy-five letters which I have recently examined. I have excluded here all cases in which Mrs. Eddy's name was mentioned earlier in the letter. It seems hardly likely that all these writers would spontaneously bring in the name of their leader precisely in this position in the letter.

In twelve out of seventy-five letters the rather unusual phrase _materia medica_ occurs.

The price of treatment under Christian Science and under the previous medical care is mentioned in a large proportion of these letters.

Not one of these letters mentions the name of any doctor connected at any time with the case. From personal experience with similar stories heard from my own patients and from the lips of Christian Scientists, I know that doctors' names are usually mentioned. It seems unlikely that in one hundred consecutive testimonies the physicians' names should have been spontaneously omitted.

For these reasons one cannot help believing either that these letters have been liberally edited, or that their writers have been much influenced by reading or hearing of similar cases. This does not necessarily imply any charge of intentional deception, but weakens very considerably their value as evidence.

_"Natural Selection" in the Christian Science Clinic_

The persistence of Christian Scientists in the belief that they can cure organic disease, a belief which I consider genuine in the majority of cases, is probably due to the following reason: By a curious process of "natural selection," a patient suffering from organic disease rarely consults a Christian Scientist, just as he rarely consults an osteopath. Being ignorant of diagnosis, the Christian Scientist is not aware of this fact and supposes that he is treating, not a selected group of cases of functional disease, but all disease. This mistake is all the more natural because the Christian Scientist, with the natural credulity of the half-educated, accepts the patient's own diagnosis at its face value or trusts the hearsay report of what some doctor is supposed to have said.

The same interesting process of "natural selection" accounts for the fact that Christian Scientists are so rarely the cause of death to those whom they treat. It is undoubtedly true that deaths occasionally occur (for example, from diphtheria) which are directly traceable to the fatal inactivity and ignorance of a Christian Scientist. But such deaths are in my opinion rare. They are pretty sure to give rise to newspaper notoriety and so to become widely known, yet one does not hear of many such in the course of a year, for common sense steers the great majority of sufferers from organic disease away from the parlors of the Christian Scientist.

"_Doctors Who Flood the World with Disease_"

It is impossible to study the evidence for and against the so-called Christian Science cures without crossing the track of many an incapable doctor. Indeed, there can be no candid criticism of Christian Science methods that does not involve also an arraignment of existing medical methods. It is not difficult to perceive, as one studies the testimonies recorded in the _Christian Science Journal_, that many patients have been driven into Christian Science by a multitude of shifting and mistaken diagnoses, by the gross abuse of drugs, especially of morphine, and by the total neglect of rational psychotherapy on the part of many physicians. No doubt these causes account only for a certain fraction of the desertions to Christian Science. There are many patients who have so little patience and so much credulity that they desert their doctors for no good reason whatever; but I believe that these cases are in the minority, and that the success of the Christian Science movement is due largely to the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of a certain proportion of the medical profession.

I can see some foundation even for such an exaggerated charge as that the doctors "are flooding the world with disease"--a favorite expression of Mrs. Eddy's. No one who has seen much of the nervous or hysterical affections following railway accidents and of the methods not infrequently used, not only by lawyers, but by doctors, to make the sufferers believe that they are sicker than they really are, can deny that there is some truth in Mrs. Eddy's charge. Even in her irrational denunciations of hygiene, one cannot help seeing some grain of truth when one reads or hears of the multitude of petty prudences and "old womanish" superstitions not infrequently exploited by school teachers, parents, and teachers of physical culture, under the name of "hygiene."

_The Classic Methods Used by Christian Science_

Believing, then, as I do, that most Christian Science cures are genuine--genuine cures of functional disease--the question arises whether the special methods of mental healing employed by Christian Scientists differ from other methods of mental healing, such as are employed by the best neurologists, both in this country and in Europe.

Of the classical methods of psychotherapeutics, namely, explanation, education, psychoanalysis, encouragement, suggestion, rest-cure and work-cure, the Christian Scientists use chiefly suggestion, education, and work-cure, though each of these methods is colored and shaped by the peculiar doctrines of the sect.

The quack who sells magic handkerchiefs supposed to be endowed with miraculous healing powers by the touch of his sacred hand, the priests who exploit the "healing springs" at Lourdes, and the doctor who gives a bread pill or a highly diluted homeopathic drug, may cure a patient by what is known as "suggestion," that is, by producing in the patient a strong belief that he will get well. Christian Science suggestion takes the form of "silent treatment" and "absent treatment," in which the patient is influenced by the auto-suggestions of health which the silent pressure of the "practitioner" or the knowledge of the "absent treatment" leads him to make.

Christian Science education consists in the reading of "Science and Health," of the Bible, as interpreted by Mrs. Eddy (after Quimby), and of the teachings received at the hands of Christian Science practitioners. Although there is much that is false and harmful in the education thus received, I believe that a good many warped minds do find in it the corrective twist which they need--just as a certain type of crooked spine may be helped by a violent twist in the other direction.

Work-cure is, I think, the sanest and most helpful part of Christian Science, as of all other types of psychotherapy. The Christian Scientists do set idle people to work and turn inverted attention outward upon the world. This is a great service--the greatest, I think, that can be done to a human being. By setting their patients to the work of healing and teaching others, Christian Scientists have wisely availed themselves of the greatest healing power on earth.

I believe that suggestion, education, and work-cure can be used in far safer and saner ways by physicians, social workers, and teachers or clergymen properly trained for the work than by the Christian Scientists. Heretofore these last have held the field of psychotherapy largely without competition. American physicians have confined themselves mostly to physical and chemical methods (diet, drugs, and surgery), which have a place in the cure of functional disease, but not, I think, the chief place.

Now that scientific psychotherapy is being taken up by physicians, social workers, and educators (including the clergy), not instead of, but in conjunction with physical and chemical treatment, I think it is reasonable to expect that Christian Science will have to stick closer to the truth if it is to hold its ground in competition.

SOUTH STREET

BY FRANCIS E. FALKENBURY

As I came down to the long street by the water, the sea-ships
drooped their masts like ladies bowing,
Curtseying friendly in a manner olden,
Shrouds and sails in silken sunlight flowing,
Gleaming and shimmering from silvern into golden,
With the sea-winds through the sunlit spaces blowing.

As I came down to South Street by the glimmering, tossing water, the
sweet wind blew, oh, softly, sweetly blew
O'er the lean, black docks piled high with curious bales,
Odorous casks, and bundles, of foreign goods,
And all the long ships with their fair, tall sails,
Lading the winey air with the spices of alien woods.

As I came down by the winding streets to the wondrous green
sea-water, the sounds along the water-front were tuned to fine
accord;
I heard the racket of the halliards slapping,
Along the bare poles stabbing up aloft;
I saw loose men, their garments ever flapping,
Lounging a-row along each ruined wooden stair:
Their untamed faces in the golden sun were soft,
But their hard, bright eyes were wild, and in the sun's soft flare
Nothing they saw but sounding seas and the crash of ravening wind;
Nothing but furious struggle with toil that never would end.
The call of mine ancient sea was clamoring through their blood;
Ah, they all felt that call, but nothing they understood,
As I came down by the winding streets to South Street by the water.

As I came down to South Street by the soft sea-water, I saw long
ships, their mast-heads ever bowing:
Sweet slender maids in clinging gowns of golden,
Curtseying stately in a fashion olden,
Bowing sweetly--each a king's fair daughter--
To me, their millionth, millionth lover,
I, the seventh son of the old sea-rover,
As I came down to South Street by the myriad moving water.

THE INABILITY TO INTERFERE

BY MARY HEATON VORSE

To myself I could be articulate enough about it. Indeed, I held long conversations about it, mainly in the darkness of the night, with my bolder self, who advised me so cleverly and who told me all the tactful things and all the forceful things that I ought on occasion to say. Then there came, with that other self, a conversation which settled things. It went something in this way:

"You have let things go far enough."

"Yes," I admitted guiltily, "I know it."

"It's time you took a stand."

"I know it," I again admitted forlornly.

"Why don't you do it then?" sternly asked the bolder self. He could afford to be bold, it wasn't he who had the talking to do. "Why don't you explain to Felicia the way you feel about it and how it looks and all about it----"

This time it was myself who grew bold. I said:

"You great ass! Do you think I'm going to let you make me make Felicia cry?"

"Better have her cry," grumbled the other self, "than let her expose herself unthinking to--well, all sorts of things." (One would have thought to hear him that Monty Saunders was the measles!)

We were silent a while, and in my imagination I saw again the distressing spectacle of Felicia weeping. I suppose there is no man who has been married a year who has not made his Felicia cry.

You cannot explain how the terrible thing came about. It may be you had a moment of surface impatience. Generally it's something less definite than that--a bit of chaff at an untimely moment, an indiscreet question put forth in a spirit of the friendliest curiosity.

"Why," for instance you may have said, "isn't dinner ready?"

You didn't mind its not being ready in the least, but, not being used to having dinners of your own, you were amused and interested to know the cause of its lateness. And there before your eyes the unbelievable has happened, Felicia is in tears, and it is your fault.

You are like a landsman who has pulled an innocent-looking plug out of the bottom of a boat and sees it fill and founder before his eyes; you feel like a man who lights a match and lo! his house is in flames; with such horror and bewilderment does the sight of a weeping Felicia fill you. Guilt and bewilderment struggle with one another, as her mouth quivers pitifully and her eyes fill with slow tears. She turns away to battle with them, and, instead of holding your tongue, you choose from among all the silly, inadequate things there are in the world to say, "What's the matter, dear?"

"I--I--left--a book in--my room," answers Felicia, and she pushes past you and goes out of the door, and, though you don't know it at the time, she is as bewildered as you are.

You walk up and down the floor two or three times, you open the door and shut it, finally you can't stand it any longer, you must find out how Felicia does. You go up to your room, and there on the bed is what is left of the gallant, saucy Felicia you know. It is a crumpled little heap, and you can see only a knot of disordered hair and shaking shoulders, and as if this wasn't bad enough, there is added the sound of muffled sobs. You go up to her and put a beseeching hand on her shoulder.

"Felicia," you implore. Then from the depths of the pillow come the broken words:

"Go--away--go--away--and--leave--me--alone." Nor is the tone all anguish, anger finds its place there as well, and this bewilders you still more. You could not know, of course, that Felicia is angry at you for having seen her cry.

"I can't go away and leave you like this," you say.

The shoulders shake still harder, the sobs are louder, for sympathy is hard to bear in such moments of humiliation--but this too you find out later.

You walk across the room, helplessly, hopelessly. You murmur forth apologies, though you don't know for what you are apologizing, and words of endearment and of sympathy, though you can't tell what it is you are sympathetic about. You would do anything, abase yourself to any degree, to stop the noise of sobbing which is slowly sapping your manhood.

You stand looking down on poor Felicia--what _is_ the matter with her? What has happened?

"I don't believe you can be well, my darling," you are fool enough to say. Inside you your other self is grumbling:

"Well, I'm hanged if _I_ understand women!"

If only she would stop; she must have been crying ten minutes, and you have aged years. If only you understood why, how much easier it would be! The only thing you do understand is that whatever you say and whatever you do, or whether it's sympathy or silence, it's wrong.

There is a knock on the door.

"Dinner is served," says a voice, and you (feeling like a quitter, but you can't stand the sight of her any longer) say:

"Felicia, I'm going down. I don't seem to be doing you any good----"

Felicia raises her head.

"You're not!" says she spitefully. They're the first words she has spoken since she pleaded with you in agonized tones to "let her be."

Then, as you sit down to the mockery of oysters and soup, anger rises in you. What creatures women are! Hasn't a man a right to ask why dinner isn't ready in his own house without the sky falling? You look at your watch; more than half an hour late. Well, why wasn't it ready? Why? When a man comes home tired from the office, he has a right to expect his dinner to be ready. Yes, by Jove! and a right to ask "Why?" and a right, too, to expect a cheerful, pleasant wife! What struck Felicia, anyway? and in spite of your anger, pity sweeps over you for poor little Felicia crying upstairs, and you rise and go to the door, angry and distressed, while your inner self tells you pity is unmanly. You feel abused and bruised; how scenes take it out of one, you think resentfully, and just here you pause, for there are footsteps on the stairs. It can't be Felicia, you think. But it is Felicia, who comes into the room, beautifully dressed. Why, she must have got up and dressed, tears and all, the instant you left the room! She comes in gallantly, carrying the powder on her nose with effrontery, denying her eyes, which still show the ravages of tears, by the gay smile on her lips; and as dinner progresses, excellent, and with Felicia all as natural and gay as possible, you wonder more than ever what the devil it was all about anyway. But at night, as you ponder it over again, you get a certain blurred vision of what it meant. You are too young in marriage to put it into words, but you have an intuition that marriage, after all, is a very new country for Felicia, full of a thousand details you know nothing about, whose A, B, C she must learn slowly and painfully--and all alone, there is no one to help her. You can't. She's got to grape her way about by herself in this unfamiliar land. All you can do is to be very, very considerate and very, very careful not to make her cry.

But hang it all, if she's going to cry every time you ask if dinner is ready, how are you going to help making her? And all at once the vision of how careful you have got to be makes you feel bowed down with care. You will never, you are sure, speak another natural word in her presence. Who would have believed she would cry so easily? How awful to consider you made her! Then you hear Felicia give a little breath of a sigh, like a child which has sobbed itself to sleep.

"Felicia," you say impulsively, "I was a brute."

"I was a goose," she protests, "an awful little goose," and deep down in your heart you agree with her, though you declare again it was your fault, and you have an uneasy feeling that she is at one with you about your being a brute, and you fall asleep at last thinking that things never again can have the same glamour between you two, that somehow Felicia's tears have cried away the bloom of marriage. But in the morning you wake up and wonder what it was you thought had happened, for nothing has--things haven't changed. You merely resolve that you will try to understand, mere man that you are, the finer creature the Lord has trusted you with. But oh, why can't women be reasonable?

* * * * *

This scene flitted through my mind as the silence fell between my two selves; the other one of me brooded over my inertia in the matter in hand. At last he broke the silence and my awful vision of Felicia in tears with:

"A man ought, you know, to look after his young wife. He shouldn't let her make herself conspicuous with men, especially with a silly young ass. It isn't being jealous," he concluded virtuously.

"Oh, no, we're not jealous," I agreed eagerly.

"You must speak to her."

"I can't."

"Why?" he demanded. And then it came out. Why? It had been staring me in the face all along. I had known why, but I had shirked, as long as I could, putting my confession of weakness into words. If I had never seen Felicia cry, it would have been different. I might have talked to her as man to man, but now:

"I can't, because it's impossible for me to interfere with Felicia."

I told him. There it was. It was constitutionally impossible for me to interfere, in words anyway. It was like a sense lacking, but there where my Felicia-preventing faculties should have been there was a blank.

"Do you mean you would let her do anything?"

"Anything," I assented.

"Let her drift from you and not reach out your hand for her?"

"I couldn't raise my hand," I confessed sadly. There it was. I couldn't do the disagreeable task known as "bringing her to her senses." If Felicia couldn't feel that I didn't like what she did, I couldn't, for the life of me, or even the life of Felicia, open my mouth. And I believe there are a great many men like me in the world, and more women, too. A certain kind of pain makes us dumb. A certain pride freezes back the words that would come. The men of us have perhaps seen our Felicias cry. And there's no use saying afterwards, Why didn't you tell me? What, after all, is the use of words, when it's written all over you in the very set of your coat that you're hurt?

So now it was all settled. There was no use in my lying awake at night any longer while my other self tickled his vanity by making up admonitory conversations with Felicia, that went this way:

"Felicia," I was to say tenderly yet seriously, "I have something I want to talk over with you."

Felicia would be impressed by my manner, and even a little frightened, and she would murmur:

"Yes?" expectantly, meekly.

"Felicia," I was to continue, "I do not want you to think I am blaming you. I am blaming myself for letting things go so far, for not explaining things to you before; you are young, you do not understand the world."

"That is true," Felicia would reply with adorable meekness, as she lifted questioning eyes to mine. Then I was to sit down beside her and taking both her hands in mine: