Rest cure

“ Now we treat their sick and ailing bodies just as we would any other class of chronic patients, with rest, comfortable surroundings, good food, baths, and fresh air, correction of bad habits, gentleness, and kindness, leaving their minds and souls practically without treatment, excepting in so far as ordinary, decent humanity and consideration may be regarded as mental remedies,—and we cure from thirty to fifty per cent, and make all but five per cent comfortable, contented, comparatively happy. ”

“ I would have more trust in your means than in any doctor's learning. And in case you might fail to cure him, I have a cure myself I heard from my grandmother ... God rest her soul ... and she told me she never knew it to fail. A person to have the falling sickness, to cut the top of his nails and a small share of the hair of his head, and to put it down on the floor and to take a harry-pin and drive it down with that into the floor and to leave it there. "That is the cure will never fail," she said, "to rise up any person at all having the falling sickness." ”

“ If we remember when we are taken ill that nature always tends towards health, we will study carefully to fulfill nature's conditions in order to cure the disease.
We will rest quietly, until nature in her process toward health has reached health. In that way our illness can be the means of giving us a good rest, and, while we may feel the loss of the energy of which the disease has robbed us, we also feel the good effects of the rest which we have given to organs which were only tired. ”

“ For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to "live as domestic a life as far as possible," to "have but two hours' intellectual life a day," ”

“ Relief is generally possible only when a powerful hold has been obtained upon the mind of the patient; after that appropriate remedies may be applied, and the body will be restored to its natural healthy condition. In a few cases remarkable incidents have produced a cure, such as the sudden clanking of chains, or a peculiarly fervent and impressive prayer. Even a night's sound sleep, induced by utter exhaustion, has had the happiest effect. ”

“ And for all of them, the little ones as well as the adults, the pain was acute whilst the miracle was being accomplished; for the work of repair could not be effected without causing an extraordinary shock to the whole human organism; the bones grew again, new flesh was formed, and the disease, driven away, made its escape in a final convulsion. But how great was the feeling of comfort which followed! The doctors could not believe their eyes, their astonishment burst forth at each fresh cure, when they saw the patients whom they had despaired of run and jump and eat with ravenous appetites. ”

“ Before I proceed to speak of the radical cure of the consumption, it will be necessary to observe, that by means of the palliative remedies which have been mentioned, many persons have been recovered, and some have had their lives prolonged by them for many years; but in most of these cases I have found, upon inquiry, that the disease recurred as soon as the patient left off the use of his remedies, unless they were followed by necessary or voluntary exercise. ”

“ Some silly feat of strength may produce an irreparable injury. A thoughtless hour of reading by twilight may impair the sight for life. A terrible accident may happen, and a dear friend perish before our eyes, while we stand by powerless to render the assistance we could so easily give did we "only know what to do." The thousand little hints which may save or lengthen life, may repel or abate disease, and the simple laws which regulate our bodily vigor, should be so familiar that we may be quick to apply them in an emergency. The preservation of health is easier than the cure of disease. ”

“ Remedy the sick by means of heavenly joy and spiritual exultation, cure the sorely afflicted by imparting to them blissful glad tidings and heal the wounded through His resplendent bestowals. When at the bedside of a patient, cheer and gladden his heart and enrapture his spirit through celestial power. Indeed, such a heavenly breath quickeneth every mouldering bone and reviveth the spirit of every sick and ailing one.
132: Although ill health is one of the unavoidable conditions ... Although ill health is one of the unavoidable conditions of man, truly it is hard to bear. ”

“ Death, according to this theory, is due to the indolence of the soul, leading it to desist from its vital motions, and refusing to continue longer the struggle against the derangements of the body.998 Here we have the “expectant treatment” so much in vogue with many medical men. “Trusting to the constant attention and wisdom of nature,” they administered inert medicines as placebos, while they left to nature the cure of the disease. ”

“ But those who consider sickness as coming from the hand of God, out of His mercy and as the means He uses for their salvation, commonly find sweetness and consolation in it.
I pray that you see that God is often nearer to us and present within us in sickness than in health. Do not rely completely on another physician because He reserves your cure to Himself. Put all your trust in God. You will soon find the effects in your recovery, which we often delay by putting greater faith in medicine than in God. Whatever remedies you use, they will succeed only so far as He permits. ”

“ That which keeps relief away in the case of the cold, of pain, and of many illnesses, is the contraction of the nerves and muscles of the body, which impedes the curative power of its healing forces. The contraction of the nerves and muscles of the body is caused by resistance in the mind, and resistance in the mind is unwillingness: unwillingness to endure the distress of the cold, the pain, or the illness, whatever it may be; and the more unwilling we are to suffer from illness, the more we are hindering nature from bringing about a cure. ”

“ The healer's constant affirmation that there can be no sickness, no disease in God's image in man, is a powerful suggestion which tends to weaken the grip of error in his patient's body. The very shutting out of all fear, of the terror of disease and death, is a great step towards a cure, because these things are depressing to all the bodily functions. ”

“ He scarcely hoped for the miracle of cure from a disease which he as a doctor knew had carried off so many people, but if he were to die he felt that he would rather die in the face of nature with his beloved mountains all around him than in the shut-in spaces of the city. ”

“ The irregular does not insist on the incurability of the disease, but, on the contrary, he promises a cure. He then proceeds to relieve many bothersome symptoms that are quite extraneous to the underlying disease, but thus makes the patient ever so much more comfortable than before, gives a cheerful air to his life for a time, makes him sleep better as a consequence and it is not surprising that the patient thinks that his disease has been bettered, if not cured. ”

“ The silence of Christian Science and Love is eloquent. It is powerful to unclasp the hold of disease, and reduce its cause to nothingness.
To prevent disease or to cure it mentally, let Spirit destroy this dream of sense. If you wish to heal by Insistence. argument, find the type of the ailment, get its name, and array your mental plea against the physical. Argue with the patient (mentally, not audibly) that he has no disease, and conform the argument to the evidence. Mentally insist that health is the everlasting fact, and sickness the temporal falsity. ”

“ And you will, if satisfied with the bona fides of your sensitive’s powers of diagnosis and general lucidity, faithfully carry them out.
The mesmeric treatment for the cure of disease may be purely local or general in character, exercised solely with the intention to alleviate and cure disease, without producing sleep, sleep not being necessary in the majority of cases. If necessary, you know how to bring it about.
Nothing is worth doing that is not worth doing well. If you want to cure disease set about it, and “whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might,” i. ”

“ The time required for recovery must depend, not only, as has been already hinted, on the duration of illness, but also on the peculiar temperament of the patient, and judicious after-treatment; this latter requiring long perseverance on the part of both practitioner and the friends of his patient; and it is as we meet a favourable or unfavourable case that the opinions of Brown-Séquard, as to instant cure on removal of irritation, or of Handfield Jones, as to cure after a long interval, are verified. ”

“ I suppose, therefore, that dread of the pain of some unknown mode of treatment makes them conceal their real disease, and name some other, of which they know the cure to be unattended with bodily suffering or long restraint. ”

“ Fortunate is the patient when such an escape can be established, because wherever in the system morbid excretions, suppressed by medical treatment, concentrate, there will inevitably be found the seat of chronic disease. ”

“ These are mentioned because, being least able to help themselves into the water, they lay longest waiting in the porches. Those that were sick of these bodily diseases took the pains to come far and had the patience to wait long for a cure; any of us would have done the same, and we ought to do so: but O that men were as wise for their souls, and as solicitous to get their spiritual diseases healed! We are all by nature impotent folks in spiritual things, blind, halt, and withered; but effectual provision is made for our cure if we will but observe orders. ”

“ The best things in the healing art have been done by those who never had a diploma the first Caesarian section, lithotomy, the use of cinchona, of ether as an anaesthetic, the treatment of the air passages by inhalation, the water cure and medicated baths, electricity as a healing agent, and magnetism, faith cure, mind cure, etc. ”

“ There is no one affliction of mortality more easily and certainly reducible, with a little patience, and a rational confidence in the physician. With these simple conditions, I look upon the cure as absolutely certain. ”

“ I remember once to have seen an admirable Cure done in a moment by the help of humane dung, in a certain, long, and tedious Disease, which it plainly and swiftly removed, drawing those into admiration who were ignorant of the reason of so swift a Cure. ”

“ Such practices as these do nut constitute the Science whereby the Divine Mind heals the sick. If certain cases seem to improve under such treatment, they will relapse, and become more difficult to cure than they were at first. ”

“ They finally became suppuarated, in which state they continued about six weeks, the humor exhaling from the sides of his feet and the ends of his toes, leaving the system entirely free from the disease. Since leaving the cure, he has grown as fast as could be desired, and continues in the enjoyment of good health. ”

“ Curative medicine would therefore be more adapted to them than surgery. And herbs, those beautiful healing herbs which stand on the hill-tops, and amid the fields, like beneficent angels beckoning in the summer winds, may be borne by the hands of the female physician into the dwellings of the sufferers, and, by means of miraculous powers called forth by love and art, may promulgate the Evangile of health more and more over the earth, and change, as much as is possible, even the so frequently terrible work of death into a peaceful transition state. ”

“ He recognized the great healing power of faith, and impressed upon His followers the truth, that without it no healing was possible.
Every physician knows that his patient's faith in his power to cure him, in the efficacy of the remedies he applies, are curative agencies. Faith in medicinal remedies is what makes them effective. It is faith that furnishes the potency of thousands of so-called remedies, which have no intrinsic value whatever.
We all know how the visualizing of disease and the fear of it affect the mind in undermining the health ideal. ”

“ That woman surely brought me my death—Physicians, since ancient times, have sought their death by means of poison—I from the former freeholder, just a physician is left once more . . . must remain true to my calling. (Raises the vial, walking to the light to examine it.) Yes, this is the universal healer, the medicine that cures all ills, all that we have fought against in vain; the shortest formula of philosophy, the dropstone of wisdom, and the key which unlocks the other world. ”

“ And suppose the cure effected, how can we assure ourselves that it was not because the disease was arrived at its period, or an effect of chance, or the operation of something else that the child had eaten, drunk, or touched that day, or by virtue of his mother's prayers? We suppose we see one side of a thing when we are really looking at another. ”

“ A cure in a single treatment was the best method, for the patient readily relapsed unless he was made to feel that he had recovered his powers completely and that it would be his own fault if he permitted his symptoms to recur. ”

“ The contest for the recovery of the sick goes on between minds, not between bodies. The victory will be on the doctor's side, only as he subdues the beliefs in disease, through whatever method he may adopt, — whether it be faith in drugs, in hygiene, in prayer, or in some minor curative.
There are really but two modes of practice; one is quackery, the other is Science. To heal the sick we must be familiar with the great verities of being. Mind is immortal. ”