Locomotor ataxia is an organic disease of the
spinal cord, but this is not to be confused with
a functional paralysis superinduced by fear or
false ideas — a common condition well known to
the medical profession and readily cured by
proper explanation and education of the pa-
tient. The functional paralysis frequently ac-
companies the organic changes occurring in
locomotor ataxia. As for cancer, we know this
is a disease in which cells grow to form a timior,
and they multiply in spite of anything that can
be done to prevent their growth. They have,
as it were, a habit of growth which ceases only
with death. Cases of apparent cancer have been
cured by Christian Science, but there is no re-
corded instance of a case, attested by a compe-
tent pathologist, that has responded to that
treatment. Countless cancer-cures have been
claimed by representatives of the various kinds
of non-medical cults, but in every instance where
the facts regarding these cures have been ex-

76



amined the claim has been undermined and re-
jected. Pain indeed has been removed, and the
patient restored to what seemed normal living,
but the actual disease, retarded for a time, in-
evitably manifested itself again because of its
very nature, as a process of cell-growth, to form
a tumor. Too often is the cure of symptoms
confused with cure of the underlying organic
disease, and many a disorder of the nervous sys-
tem, susceptible to effective treatment by Chris-
tian Science, has been reported as an instance
of an organic disease, which it lies beyond the
reach of those methods to cure, judging by the
testimony already adduced by Paget and Cabot
and others competent to pass judgment upon
them. At any rate, if the claim of Chris-
tian Scientists to have cured cancer is to be
established, it will not do to adduce merely
ten cases incompletely recorded — as in Sena-
tor Work's list. That number is in any case
much too small. Let there be at least fifty
well established cases, authenticated and pro-
nounced upon by expert pathologists. If the
majority of these respond to Christian Sci-
ence treatment so that the cell-growth has
been brought to a standstill and the tumor
absorbed, then, and only then, will it be right to
say that a cure was effected, and that Christian
Science achieved the cure.
