8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



operation like the erection of a tower or the calculation of the 

 path of a cannon-ball will result in success or failure accord- 

 ing as it is or is not performed in complete agreement with 

 this law. 



Now, the Christian Scientists are continually making failures. 

 Patients whom they have treated for a long time still have poor 

 health. The healers plead that these patients have been helped 

 some, but the gain is doubtful ; and, besides, their theory does not 

 leave room for any partial successes. " The rule, and its perfect- 

 ness in my system, never vary," says Mrs. Eddy. There are other 

 patients who might have been numbered among the successes of 

 Christian Science if they had not unfortunately died under the 

 treatment. Such instances furnish frequent items for the news- 

 papers. " The Medical and Surgical Reporter " gives this case : 

 The wife of a physician in Cincinnati had a cancer. The growth 

 was removed, but after some months the disease reappeared, and 

 everything that the best medical skill of the country could do for 

 the patient proved in vain. She was urged to try the faith-cure, 

 but her husband naturally refused to allow this. When, how- 

 ever, it began to be whispered about that, because she was married 

 to a physician, she must die for want of freedom to avail herself 

 of all methods of cure, he could resist no longer. Under his pro- 

 test she went to the faith-healers, and every day they told her 

 that she was getting better, while she was really growing worse, 

 and soon died. 



" The New York Herald " prints the following : 



Chicago, III., February SI, 1888.— F. Benedict, late an employ^ at W. "W. 

 Kimball & Company's piano ware-rooms, lies dead in the La Burnham flats, a 

 victim to " faith-healing," and to-morrow Dr. C. R. Teed, the editor of the 

 Christian Science organ, " The Guiding Star," will be called upon to answer 

 charges of criminal malpractice in connection with the case. 



From the " Boston Herald " I learn that Mrs. Lottie A. James, 

 of West Medford, Mass., died April 20, 1888, in childbirth, under 

 the treatment of her mother, who was a Christian Scientist. The 

 child also died. Her husband was absent. The mother was 

 charged with manslaughter, but the grand jury failed to indict 

 her. The following item appeared in the " New York Trib- 

 une " : 



Springrfield., Mo., May 28ih. — Mrs. John Truesdale last night drowned herself 

 in a reservoir. Siie had acted strangely for the last two or three weeks, owing to 

 strict adherence to the teachings of a Christian Scientist, James Reed. He told 

 Mrs. Truesdale that he could teach her the science of healing by i)rayer so that 

 she could heal her husband, who is an engineer, but has been ill with consump- 

 tion for several months. Grasping at anything that promised any hope for her 

 husband, she visited Reed frequently, and the general opinion is that out of her 

 experience grew the despair that caused her to kill herself. 



