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:
“Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“While I am to crawl upon this Planet, I would willingly enjoy the health at least of an insect.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)