● ● ● was called to her home outside Portland in 1862 to treat her for severe neuralgic pains. He came late in the afternoon, stayed overnight, and left the next morning.
His treatment consisted in placing bands on his wrists, plunging his hands in cold water, manipulating the head and making passes down the body. He asked me to concentrate my mind on him and to think of nothing and nobody but him. He requested the members of the family to leave the room as he said he could not control my mind with any one else present. As the relief came to me, he suffered greatly himself saying that he took on my pain. I learned afterwards that his pain was so intense that it became necessary for my father to assist him to bed. . . . When he left that morning I told him that I would have another attack at eleven o’clock—as the attacks came periodically—and asked what I should do. He left instructions for me to think of him and to drink water until relief came. The following day I was taken to his office in a carriage for further treatment. . . . I took no further treatments but followed his directions to a greater or less extent for about four years, experiencing only temporary relief. . . . He never spoke of God to me, or referred to any other power or person but himself. . . . I distinctly recall that before he left our home that morning, my father offered him a check for One thousand Dollars if he would impart to him or any member of his family his method of treating disease, to which the Doctor replied, “I cannot. I don’t understand it myself.”60
To some, however, he was willing to go into explanations. F. L. Town, an army surgeon from Louisville, Kentucky, wrote in the Portland Daily Advertiser on March 6, 1862:
He will explain to you his way of practice—give you the benefit of his treatment—entertain you with stereoscopic views of his theory or belief, and end off perhaps by explaining a few passages of ● ● ●
60 Emma A. Thompson, affidavit, 23 February 1907, Subject File, P. P. Quimby - Affidavits, Etc. - Paine To Williams, MBEL. Cf. E. A. Thompson, “Aspersions of Christian Science Rebutted,” The Christian Science Journal, November 1886, p. 184. Mrs. Thompson’s account in the Journal was authenticated by her father, mother, and aunt.
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