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.
These facts are admitted by the advocates of Christian Science and Mind Cure, and the absolute lunacy of their theories is seen in the manner in which they attempt to account for the effects.
If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, the patient dies, while physician and patient are expecting favorable results. Did belief cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally taken. . . . The few who think a drug harmless, where a mistake has been made in the prescription, are unequal to the many who have named it poison, and so the majority opinion governs tho result.—Eddy.
It is said that arsenic kills; but it would bo very difficult for any one to prove how it kills; since persons have had all the symptoms of arsenic poisoning without having taken any arsenic; and again, persons have taken arsenic and did not die. . . . Suppose you take a child that knows nothing about arsenic, and administer the usual dose, the child will probably die, but I will show you that the arsenic was not the cause of the death. . . . Here you may say, "What had the life of the child to do with the action, the child not knowing anything about arsenicf" We will admit that the child was ignorant of the nature of the poison, but all who are educated in physiology and materia inedica know that it kills, therefore the thought, although unconscious to the child, was hereditary in its life. It is, indeed, a universal thought admitted as a fact in every life or soul. A thought is a product of life and is action, and this thought, produced and accepted by life, acts upon the life of the child and produces unconsciously a confusion therein. This confusion produces a fear; this fear in the child's life heats the blood and causes the first conscious action.—Arens.
The effects of various experiments, with chemicals and medicine, upon cats and dogs, are studied most minutely by distinguished scientific men, and the results witnessed published to the world with a presumption of wisdom and profundity of learning that carry the conviction to most minds that the properties of such drugs, and their effects upon the human system, have been forever established. And Materia Medica falls back upon these so-called demonstrations of Science as absolutely indisputable proofs of its Theories. Now it never seems to have occurred to them that all tho effects witnessed of such experimenting might be accounted for on the basis of Thought, and with the view of investigating the subject to establish a totally opposite explanation; and to show that Mind acting on Matter could account for all their facts, the following experiments have been recently made: The object of the experiments was a dog, a noble thoroughbred, of great sagacity and intelligence. The first experiment consisted in conveying commands to him entirely through mind. Not a word was spoken, but his mistress would say to him mentally,— "Carlo, come here." or "Carlo, lie down." and although the thought might have to be repeated mentally a number of times, yet it would reach him, and sometimes he would respond almost immediately. Second experiment: One day his master discovered an appearance to which he gave the name Mange. All the dogs around were having it. It was catching,— Dr. So-and-So had pronounced it mange, and prescribed a mixture of Sulphur and Castor Oil, etc., which was to be applied externally in such a way that Carlo, in attempting to remove the preparation with his tongue, would get a dose into his system. Hut here the mistress interposed, and insisted that Carlo should be subjected wholly to mental treatment. The result was entirely satisfactory. The appearance vanished as it came. Again the experiment of placing Carlo entirely under the intelligence of his master's mind and thoughts for a certain period was tried, and compared with the effects of leaving him wholly under his mistress's mind. In the former case he soon exhibited every symptom of dyspepsia and indigestion in every form to which the master was subject, and in a very marked degree. But under the thought of the mistress, every symptom and appearance vanished at once. He soon attained a perfection of physical condition which constantly attracted the notice of every one. Experiments of this kind were carried much further, and can be by any one who wishes to test the matter for themselves. In all the instances just mentioned, the physical condition of the dog responded to the mind under whose influence it chanced to be. Love and Fear (especially fear) are the most marked characteristics of the animal mind. The instances are innumerable where the instinct of the animal surpasses the reason of man in detecting the kindly thought, or the thought of harm, toward itself. When a scientific experimenter gives a drug to a dog, it is done with a perfect certainty in his mind that disorder, derangement of the system, suffering, etc., in some form or another, are sure to follow. A fear corresponding to the thought of the man instantly seizes upon tho dog, and various results do follow. Tho experimenter notes them down and then proceeds to try his drug on dog number 2, all the while holding in his mind an image of the results of experiment number 1, expecting to see similar results. In all probability he sees them.—Stuart.1
Extraordinary accidents to the body. Whatever may be said of the power of thought in the production of ordinary disease, the effects of accidents to persons who are entirely unconscious when l Mrs. Stuart in the foregoing passage is only a little more absurd than Mrs. Eddy. "The preference of mortal mind for any method creates a demand for it. and the body seems to require it. You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold without his blanket; whereas tho wild animal, loft to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight." Tho connection of this quotation with what goesbefore shows that tho horse does not take cold, in the opinion of Mrs. Eddy, bocauso. having boon accustomed to tho blanket, his system is so weakened that he will take cold without it; but because the training of tho said horse has boon such that ho is led to believe that if the blanket is not on he will take cold! they occur, as the sleeping victims of railroad disasters, are facts which, if they do not terminate human life at once, require the aid of surgery. Mrs. Eddy says:
 
Continue to: