my own patients and from the lips of Christian Scientists,
I know that doctors' names are usually mentioned. It seems unlikely
that in one hundred consecutive testimonies the physicians' names
should have been spontaneously omitted.

For these reasons one cannot help believing either that these letters
have been liberally edited, or that their writers have been much
influenced by reading or hearing of similar cases. This does not
necessarily imply any charge of intentional deception, but weakens
very considerably their value as evidence.

_"Natural Selection" in the Christian Science Clinic_

The persistence of Christian Scientists in the belief that they can
cure organic disease, a belief which I consider genuine in the
majority of cases, is probably due to the following reason: By a
curious process of "natural selection," a patient suffering from
organic disease rarely consults a Christian Scientist, just as he
rarely consults an osteopath. Being ignorant of diagnosis, the
Christian Scientist is not aware of this fact and supposes that he is
treating, not a selected group of cases of functional disease, but all
disease. This mistake is all the more natural because the Christian
Scientist, with the natural credulity of the half-educated, accepts
the patient's own diagnosis at its face value or trusts the hearsay
report of what some doctor is supposed to have said.

The same interesting process of "natural selection" accounts for the
fact that Christian Scientists are so rarely the cause of death to
those whom they treat. It is undoubtedly true that deaths occasionally
occur (for example, from diphtheria) which are directly traceable to
the fatal inactivity and ignorance of a Christian Scientist. But such
deaths are in my opinion rare. They are pretty sure to give rise to
newspaper notoriety and so to become widely known, yet one does not
hear of many such in the course of a year, for common sense steers the
great majority of sufferers from organic disease away from the parlors
of the Christian Scientist.

"_Doctors Who Flood the World with Disease_"

It is impossible to study the evidence for and against the so-called
Christian Science cures without crossing the track of many an
incapable doctor. Indeed, there can be no candid criticism of
Christian Science methods that does not involve also an arraignment of
existing medical methods. It is not difficult to perceive, as one
studies the testimonies recorded