Persistent Ill Health
A fragile child, Mary suffered from a number of physical complaints. The exact nature of these illnesses, and their possible psychosomatic or hysterical (as it was called at that time) nature, is still a subject of debate. Mary's letters from this time, now at the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity in Boston, Massachusetts, portray her sufferings and search for relief. In an effort to find health in her adult years, she tried various medical experiments including homeopathy, medicine, dietary cures, mesmerism, hydropathy, and other popular “cures” of the day. None of those methods brought lasting health.
Read more about this topic: Mary Baker Eddy
Famous quotes containing the words persistent, ill and/or health:
“The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand idly by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“However strongly they resist it, our kids have to learn that as adults we need the companionship and love of other adults. The more direct we are about our needs, the easier it may be for our children to accept those needs. Their jealousy may come from a fear that if we adults love each other we might not have any left for them. We have to let them know that it’s a different kind of love.”
—Ruth Davidson Bell. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 3 (1978)