University of Virginia Library

Poison defined mentally

If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, and the patient dies even though physician and patient are expecting favorable results, does human belief, you ask, cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally taken.

In such cases a few persons believe the potion swal- lowed by the patient to be harmless, but the vast ma-

jority of mankind, though they know nothing of this par- ticular case and this special person, believe the arsenic, the strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to be poi- sonous, for it is set down as a poison by mortal mind. Consequently, the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick-chamber.

Heredity is not a law. The remote cause or belief of disease is not dangerous because of its priority and the connection of past mortal thoughts with present. The predisposing cause and the exciting cause are mental.

Perhaps an adult has a deformity produced prior to his birth by the fright of his mother. When wrested from human belief and based on Science or the divine Mind, to which all things are possible, that chronic case is not difficult to cure.