Chapter XII
MIND AND MICROBES
W. John Murray
The
Realm of Reality
Divine Science Publishing Assoc.
New York, 1922.
“The Lord shall preserve
thy going and thy coming in, from this
time forth, and even for
evermore.”
--Psalm 121:8
[133] Some
months ago there came to my hand a paper
which will show that my views are not
altogether personal, or antagonistic to a
theory that has become such a bugaboo to
many that everywhere and in everything
they see lurking death. There are some
physicians who seem to be obsessed with
it, so much so that if we would escape
danger we must perforce absent ourselves
from the objective world; that is, we
must actually die in order to escape
death itself, since everything, from the
dust on the window curtain to the smell
of the sweet mown hay, is a menace to
health.
The Standard
Allopathic Journal of Canada says:
The reasons for questioning the germ
theory are mainly three, viz:
1st. The divergent views of
bacteriologists as to which germ caused
the disease.
[134] 2nd. The stronger claim of
the biochemic theory.
3rd. The absense of germs at the
onset of the disease, as the following
sample cases show:
(a) A man crossing a river broke
through the ice, was rescued, later
became ill, and the doctor, fearing
pneumonia, tested for pneumo-cocci.
There were none present; when pneumonia
developed they appeared.
(b) After an oyster supper some men had
cramps--no Eberth bacilli were present
but were present later.
(c) Hurrying, a girl arrived at her
shop, sweating; as the shop was cold,
she became chilly; next day complained
of sore throat, but no Klebs-Loffler
bacilli were found. Later, when a
diphtheria patch appeared, the bacilli
were present.
Here, in each case, the bacilli
followed the onset of the
disease.
Believing that the above germs
were the result and not the cause of
the disease, tests on the germs of
diphtheria, typhoid and pneumonia were
made. The first test was whether the
Klebs-Loffler bacilli would cause
diphtheria and about 5,000 were
swallowed without any result; later,
100,000, 500,000 and a million more
were swallowed, and in no case did they
cause any ill-effect.
The second series of tests was to
decide whether the Eberth bacillus
would cause typhoid, but each test was
negative, even when millions were
swallowed.
The third series of tests showed
that one could swallow a million (and
over) pneumo-cocci without causing
pneumonia or any disturbance.
The investigations covered about
two years, and forty-five (45)
different tests were made, giving an
average of fifteen tests each. Each
germ culture was tested and six persons
(three male and three female) knowingly
took part in these tests, and in no
case did any symptoms of the disease
follow. The germs were swallowed in
each case, and were given in milk,
water, bread, cheese, meat,
head-cheese, fish and apples--also
tested on the tongue.
[135] In the
face of these tests, when the medical
profession is in a quandary, it is only
natural that the ordinary layman should
wonder what it is all about. We have much
experimentation and some cures, but
whether these cures are due to the serums
so extensively advertised, or to the
faith in them, remains to be seen. It is
a well known fact that, “As long as
a medicine is powerful in psychic
(mental) qualities it cures readily; when
it falls into disrepute or out of
fashion, and the halo goes, it loses much
of its value.” As far back as 1771
Unzer remarked: “The expectation of
the action of a remedy often causes us to
experience its operation
beforehand.” This is why “New
remedies have thus a greater effect when
first introduced than
afterwards.”
The history
of medicine furnishes us with some
remarkable proofs of the uncertainty of
its practices. It is said that in the
ancient practice of medicine everything
under the sun was utilized as a remedy
for disease. “The more out of the
way and the less suitable for a remedy a
substance seemed to be, the more likely
it was to be chosen by the old
practitioner in the healing art. Thus
they made use of gold, silver, precious
stones and pearls. But the most loathsome
substances were quite as readily
employed. Excretions from living and dead
bodies and powders of human bones were
made lavish use of.” These facts
are all narrated in order to show what
great strides medicine has made in the
last fifteen hundred years.
[136] But
what shall we say of the various vaccines
employed by the modern medico who laughs
at these ancient practices? Vaccination
is the science (?) by which a mild form
of a disease is produced in a perfectly
healthy person to prevent a worse form
from developing. A healthy animal is
inoculated in order to make it unhealthy,
and, when it is so diseased that a foul
virus has been developed in its system,
this is extracted and then injected into
the system of a pure-blooded child, on
the presumption that this child may one
day have smallpox, if he does not first
take cowpox. It would never do to inject
into the system of a healthy child some
healthy substance, for then, says the
vaccinationist, “It would not
take.” It would never do to let the
poor cow become half sick; the more
diseased she becomes the better for the
child.
We have
vaccines for everything. Drugs have gone
out of fashion, thanks to the New Thought
of things, and so we must have
substitutes. The other day I heard of
blackleg vaccine. Blackleg is an
infectious disease, and the supposed cure
for it in man is a powder prepared from
the diseased muscles of animals that have
died of blackleg. If the ancient schools
of medicine could beat this for filthy
ingenuity they must have been either a
very clever or a very rascally lot. It
might astonish some fastidious persons
who are addicted to medicine to learn
just what they are taking. If the medical
profession cannot compel us to eat germs,
as in the case of the Canadians [137]
cited, it will get them into us
hypodermically or otherwise.
Already a
reaction has set in against compulsory
vaccination, so that one day a physician
may arise who will write against the
superstitions of the medicine of today,
as there are those who are exposing the
superstitions of the medicine of
yesterday. Not long since, in the
Oranges, some parents won a victory over
the local Board of Health. They had held
an indignation meeting against compulsory
vaccination, and the Board of Health
declared that their children should not
go to school until this vaccination
requirement was complied with, and since
non-attendance of children at school is
punishable by fine or imprisonment, the
parents faced a serious situation, but
they did so unflinchingly. There were so
many of those benighted fathers and
mothers who could not see that the
injection of a filthy virus was essential
to their children’s happiness, that
their very numbers prevailed over the
more enlightened Health Board. The race
has made many changes in the manner of
treating itself against disease, and it
may be that vaccination will one day be
as obsolete as the practise of removing
the eye from a live crab--it must be a
live crab--and then using it as a cure
for photophobia. If we could wake up, as
did Rip Van Winkle, after a twenty
years’ sleep, we might discover
that all our textbooks on Materia Medica
were out of date and that our germ
theories of today were a form of
bacteriological insanity.
[138] In the
days when physicians prescribed powders
made from the entrails of frogs
(extracted while the frogs were still
alive) there were some ignorant persons
who refused to take such prescriptions
after they discovered their ingredients,
and by degrees frogs’ entrails
became unpopular and now almost any frog
may keep his entrails without any fear of
being mutilated in the name of science. I
am wondering if the popularity of the
germ will presently wane through the
fearlessness of those of us who scorn it.
If it does, of course we shall have to
devise some other means of terrorizing
humanity; meanwhile the germ must be
worked for all it is worth.
In March
1920, The Journal of the National Dental
Association of Chicago had a leading
editorial entitled, “The Slaughter
of the Teeth.” Dr. O.M. King says
in part:”Slaughter implies
ruthlessness, unnecessary
destruction,” and apparently the
term is correctly descriptive of what has
happened. Voices are being raised against
the procedure. The fault-finding voice is
from the medical profession:
“Teeth out, no results.”
No count has been made of the number of
times teeth have been removed with the
best of motives and, following quite
far-reaching promises in some
instances, with no results at all.
Quick to accept the findings of the
leaders in bacteriological and
pathological research, the great parent
profession was as quick to put the
findings to effect, with the result
that daily patients were sent to the
radiographer, and thence to the
dentist, with orders for extraction. It
was a good beginning; the beginning was
[139] made where it was the easiest and
the patient was most duly impressed
with the up-to-date intelligence of the
physician. There was no palliative
consideration for the teeth, for what
is a mere tooth? And the dentist,
desiring to be no whit behind the
physician, extracted. In this
combination the dentist was to blame.
The dentist is supposed to know
something about teeth, while the
average physician knows nothing about
them. What the schools give medical
students about dental tissues and
diseases is a travesty.
Dentists must realize that no
substitute they can make, can take the
place of the teeth they extract. They
must learn that the patient sent by the
physician for extractions has other
possible sources of infection besides
the mouth, and that sanitation might be
attempted, to show whether the mouth is
the contributing cause or whether there
is some other. The dentist who extracts
without giving the case the most
complete examination before extracting,
commits a crime.
About a year
ago there were appearing in the medical
journals, and also in some of the daily
papers, very well written articles
setting forth the theory that many of the
worst ills known to man were directly
attributable to diseased teeth, and this
in cases where the teeth showed no sign
of disease. X-rays were ordered by
physicians who believed this theory, with
the result that in some cases pus
formations were found at the roots of
teeth, and this, in the estimation of the
physician who believed so strongly in
this theory, was sufficient to account
for the symptoms which they declared
would never yield so long as this
condition of the teeth prevailed. Teeth
were ordered extracted, and they were
extracted with what one doctor called
“ruthless abandon and a [140]
forcepts.” I know one lady who had
five apparently good teeth extracted
because the specialist persuaded her that
they were the cause of a spinal disease
which had defied the best medical skill
she could find, here or elsewhere. That
she was not relieved by this painful
operation, and that she did not get
better, does not prove the teeth faddists
to be all wrong; it simply proves that
human judgment is supposed to be based on
scientific observation.
These
experiments interested me greatly for I
did not wish to treat against insanity,
if the real malady were bad teeth, and
the insanity, or rheumatism, or what not,
was only a symptom. As much as any man in
the world, I am convinced that it is much
quicker and much more effective to strike
at cause than at effects. That I employ
one method, and the physician another,
does not change the fact that I must
employ this method intelligently. I made
many inquiries both among physicians and
patients with the result that I found the
opinion to be that the cure was worse
than the disease, in most cases.
It was while
I was asking these questions that I spoke
to a surgeon-dentist who is considered
most successful. As soon as I asked him
the question which has set the dental
world thinking, as well as that part of
the metaphysical world with which I am
identified, he just laughed. I soon
discovered it was not my question at
which he was laughing but at an incident
of which he [141] was reminded. A dear
old lady client, whom he had not seen in
years, had been in his office a few days
before, in great distress. She had been
ailing all winter and her physicians, and
good ones they were, had not been able to
relieve her at all; indeed she had
steadily grown worse. Finally her latest
physician, quite in despair, suggested
that she call upon her dentist, as he
felt that the whole trouble must lie
there, since he had handled the case from
every other standpoint without success.
My good friend, the surgeon-dentist,
listened to her story of great suffering
and then asked her to take a seat in the
dental chair. He wanted to see if there
was any infection in the mouth which
might justify her physicians surmises,
but all he found was a full set of upper
and lower teeth which he himself had made
for her years previously! He did not
ridicule the idea advanced by the teeth
faddists, but he did say that he
considered it so negligible that it was
hardly worth being taken seriously.
It is a very
grave question in the minds of some of
the most intelligent medical men if the
real danger lies as much in microbes as
it does in mind. When General Grant died,
his death was given great publicity, but
the worst feature of these accounts was
the minute description of the malady
which had hastened his end. It was
smoker’s cancer, and for weeks the
doctors were besieged by patients who
were certain they had the same disease.
Some time ago a man was dying from
hydrophobia in Brooklyn, and each [142]
day there was published an account of his
condition as each phase presented itself.
So impressive was all this that the
Pasteur Institute had a stream of people
calling there every day to be inoculated
against hydrophobia--some had been bitten
years before by perfectly harmless little
dogs, while others had never been bitten
at all.
Now, it must
be inferred from what we say and from
what we quote that we are trying to
explode the whole germ theory. We believe
in germs, but we also believe there are
benign ones, and we believe they are
greatly in the majority, and we believe
these are infinitely more potent to build
up than the others are to tear down, and
we are also convinced that this very
belief is itself a safeguard against the
fears which come from the opposite
belief. It is possible to make friends of
the germs, even helpful allies, instead
of enemies. As we see it, it is a mooted
question, even with bacteriologists,
whether germs create disease or whether
disease creates germs. There are those
who believe that certain emotions, such
as fear and anger, create germs
peculiar to themselves which they call
fear germs and anger germs. Others affirm
that these emotions do not actually
create germs, but that they liberate them
from those obscure corners in the system
where they always are and where they
would do no particular harm. Now,
whichever of these opinions is correct,
it would seem the better part of wisdom
is to avoid such emotions as are
described, for if they create
germs it were folly to go into the
creating [143] business for such small
profit; while if they merely liberate
them, it were still the better part of
wisdom to let sleeping germs lie.
Professor
Elmer Gates, of the Laboratory of
Psychurgy at Washington, has proved, by
the chemistry of a drop of perspiration,
the state of a man at the time when that
drop of perspiration was taken. Sometimes
it was the sweat of anger, again the
sweat of fear, but always it contained
its own peculiar poison. Now, if that can
produce ptomaines, and ptomaines can
produce bacteria, and bacteria can
produce disease and death, it were well
for us to consider the prevention of all
this, for prevention is better than cure
as much in metaphysics as in physics.
When a reputable physician states that
all the germs in the world cannot injure
us if our vitality is high, he furnishes
us with two important points to consider.
The first is that germs are not such
terrible things as some would have us
believe, and the second is that we should
aim to keep our vitality so high that
none of these things (germs) shall hurt
us.
Let us then
consider some of the causes which tend to
lower the vitality and see if we cannot
find a remedy for them. Work does not
tend to lower our vitality--if we are in
love with our work--whether that work is
mental or physical, but worry does. A man
may work never so hard without losing his
vitality if he does not worry; but let a
man worry and he will lose appetite,
sleep and ambition, although he never
works an hour. There is an antidote for
worry, but it is [144] not to be found in
the drug store. It is trust, trust in the
living God, such trust as does not
neutralize itself by allowing doubt to
enter if things do not come about as
speedily as we desire them.
There is
another condition to which we are all
more or less subject to which makes for
lowered vitality, and this is anger,
which runs all the way from suppressed
impatience to downright uncontrolled
passion. There is an antidote for this,
but it is not to be taken out of the
bottle. Love is the antidote for anger in
all its phases.
In the heart
of every man there are the germs of Trust
and Love which need only to be cultivated
in order to grow in number and in power
so that they will first hold all other
germs in their place and then destroy
them. Then there is that something higher
from which Trust and Love take their
rise, that Something which is more
protective than anything else in the
world. It is Understanding, and by
Understanding I mean that sublime
conviction that, despite all germs, there
is God; and when it becomes a question of
which is stronger, God or germs, we ought
not to have any difficulty in
deciding.
In those
tests in Canada where a million germs
were swallowed without any ill-effect,
there was a literal fulfillment of those
words of Jesus, “Ye shall drink any
deadly thing, and it shall not hurt
you.” We have said that worry and
anger lower the vitality, but fear is
perhaps one of the most [145] deadly
germs in the world, and just as
diphtheria, typhoid and pneumonia germs
could not fasten themselves upon those
healthy constitutions of the Canadian
experimenters, so the germs of fear,
worry and anger cannot embed themselves
in the mental or physical constitution of
that man who understands that in a
universe that is filled with the presence
of God there is nothing to fear. Such a
man will go forth in the consciousness
that the Lord shall preserve his going
out and his coming in forevermore.
He will
maintain a sound constitution
first by maintaining his trust in
God, and then by temperance in eating. He
will bathe and exercise because he likes
to do these things, but he will not feel
that these are all that is necessary, for
they are but the external correspondences
of that mental bath, by means of which he
shall cleanse his thought from all fear,
worry and anger. In addition to his
physical exercises he will exercise his
mind in the direction of developing a
fuller reliance on the Spirit, so that no
matter what epidemic arises he will be
able to say within himself, “In
this will I be confident,” for
“God has given his angels charge
concerning me.” “He is a
shelter for me and a place of
refuge.” “No evil shall
befall me, neither shall any plague come
nigh my dwelling,” “for I
dwell in Him in Whom is no imperfection
and no impurity. Divine Mind rules
supreme in Its own universe and I shall
not be afraid, for where it is a question
of Mind or microbes, my faith is in
Mind.”
Chapter
13
* * * * *
The Realm of Reality
Table of
Contents
(Formerly at
Northwoods Divine Science Resource
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