This section is from the book "Faith - Healing. Christian Science And Kindred Phenomena", by James Monroe Buckley. Also available from Amazon: Faith-Healing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena.
The inductions from these cases, and from the fact that they are constantly paralleled, are:
(1) That subjective mental states, such as concentration of the attention upon a part with or without belief, can produce effects either of the nature of disease or cure.
(2) Active incredulity in persons not acquainted with these laws, but willing to be experimented upon, is often more favorable to sudden effects than mere stupid, acquiescent credulity. The first thing the incredulous, hard-headed man, who believes that " there is nothing in it," sees, that he cannot fathom, may lead him to succumb instantly to the dominant idea.
(3) That concentrated attention, with faith, can produce powerful effects; may operate efficiently in acute diseases, with instantaneous rapidity upon nervous diseases, or upon any condition callable of being modified by direct action through the nervous or circulatory system.
(4) That cures can be wrought in diseases of accumulation, such as dropsy and tumors, with surprising rapidity, where the increased action of the various excretory functions can eliminate morbid growths.
(5) That rheumatism, sciatica, gout, neuralgia, contraction of the joints, and certain inflammatory conditions, may suddenly disappear under similar mental states, so as to admit of helpful exercise; which exercise by its effect upon the circulation, and through it upon the nutrition of diseased parts, may produce a permanent cure.
(6) That the "mind-cure," apart from the absurd philosophy of the different sects into which it is already divided, and its repudiation of all medicine, has a basis in the laws of nature. The pretense of mystery, however, is either honest ignorance or consummate quackery.
(7) That all are unable to dispense with surgery, where the case is in the slightest degree complex and mechanical adjustments are necessary; also that they cannot restore a limb, or eye, or finger, or even a tooth. But in certain displacements of internal organs the consequence of nervous debility, which are sometimes aided by surgery, they all sometimes succeed by developing latent energy through mental stimulus.
 
Continue to: