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am
chiefly concerned with that host of children in America--and there is a
host, I am sorry to say--born of what I choose to call "pre-nervous"
parents. The girls of such parents frequently break down in high school.
And many of the finest boys that I know have this dreadful "thing"
fastened firmly upon them just at the very beginning of their lifework.
You may think I am a little vehement, but to me one of the most
damnable and disgusting things in the world is that the medical
profession remains so ignorant concerning the real cure for such cases.
I believe the late Sir William Osler was the greatest physician of his
generation. He was not only a man of talent, he was a genius, and his
knowledge of medicine almost passes understanding. Yet Osler himself

was as much in the dark concerning the real cure for so-called
neurasthenia as the physicians who read his works on practice. If one
wants to find out how ignorant the whole profession is on the subject of
a permanent cure, let the thing get hold of him, and then let him make
the rounds of the physicians, follow out their advice, and see where he
comes out!
I have said that even the sanitariums of this country--and for that matter
I might have said of any other country--do not permanently cure these
people. I have ample proof of this statement. I have met these people
everywhere and no doubt you have, too. Quite recently the subject was
brought up anew to me. I had written an article on the subject for one of
the magazines, a magazine having a large circulation. In a very short
time my mail was literally flooded with letters. Every incoming mail
brought great numbers of them. They came from physicians of the
regular school, and from physicians of many other schools, too. I won't
mention any of them, for this is a treatise on a dreadful affliction and
how one may get rid of it; it is not intended as a criticism of anyone. I
have no desire to criticize and I haven't time. I am stating facts
interwoven with my own life. If the cure is real, the people will find it
out after they have tried it; if it is not, they will also find that out. In
fact, it's exactly as Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul, said to the men of
Israel when they would have slain the apostles for teaching Christ's
sayings, "Refrain from these men and let them alone: for if this counsel
or this work be of men, it will come to naught: but if it be of God, ye
cannot overthrow it." And it's exactly the same way with this healing
art. The very fact that physicians of all schools of medicine--physicians
who were sufferers from "nerves"--wrote me, shows plainly that they
could not heal themselves. I have many letters from people who have
been in sanitariums for years and who still have "nerves." The
sanitariums do some people a lot of good, but they cannot remove the
cause of nervousness. I am certain that the very best rest cure for
women is the one Dr. Weir Mitchell first used. But such women are
sure to go down again and again and still again if that is all that is done
for them.
Now frankly, if Christian Science could cure such cases and make them

stay cured I should want a practitioner of this cult to treat them. But
Christian Science simply cannot cure them because the underlying
cause of this trouble is physical, not mental. In other words, the mind
becomes ill because the body is made ill by certain poisons, and the
nature of the disease is so peculiar that most of these miserable
sufferers will not even try a thing unless some one brings them
overwhelming evidence of its having wrought a cure. Or, if they do try
it, they usually quit the treatment before nature has had time to do her
work and set their bodies right.
I have the most profound sympathy for such people. I want to speak
directly to them. That is the task that I have set myself in this work. I
want to talk directly to those of you who are sufferers from "nerves." I
see you in every state, in every city, in every village, and throughout
the farming districts of this country. I have received letters from many
farmers who are suffering with this "thing." To them let me say, I know
just how you feel, and from the very bottom of my heart I pity you. I
know the horrible suffering of each one of you. I don't care what your
ambition has been or is. I don't care what