Baltimore Evening Sun (19 October 1911): 6.

Once more the pathetic sobs of a martyr shake the town. Last spring it was the super-Mahon, that lovely being, who wore the white cloak with red spots, beat his manly and heaving chest, and leaked tears like a squeezed sponge. Now it is young Mr. Carr.

Courage, Camille! You are on the right track. You have learned a good trick. It is still new, at least in our fair city. It will work again! BUT—

The time cometh when it will work no longer. The time cometh when the suckers will fall no more. Some day, soon or late, they will dry their sympathetic tears and steal a glance backward. And that glance will show them that the newspapers were right about the super-Mahon. That the newspapers were right about young Mr. Carr. That the newspapers were right about the weeper next following, and the next, and the next. And so, of a sudden, their soft hearts will shrivel up, go dry, grow waterproof. Tears will run off. The open season for heaving chests will close.

Meanwhile, wouldn’t it be affecting to see this sign hanging outside of the State’s Attorney’s door:

State’s Attorney—Robert H. Carr. First Assistant—Bernard Carter. Second Assistant—Edgar H. Gans. Third Assistant—Edwin G. Baetjer.

Books upon the New Thought, that fascinating balderdash, continue to pour from the presses. I reach out my hand and grab “Home Study in Vital Statistics,” by Dr. C. H. Carson, founder of the Temple of Health in Kansas City and of the Carson Co1lege of Psychic-Sarcology, whatever that may be. I open it at random and find this pearl of wisdom:

Magnetic persons cannot tolerate woolen garments worn next to the cutaneous surface of the body. The reason for this is that all woolen garments partake of the nature of the animal from which the wool was taken.

A sound New Thought reason. A perfect New Thought syllogism. A brother to the “proofs” ladeled out by the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society. But let us hear more:

Persons of the electric temperament * * * are different from magnetic persons in heat particles: they usually throw off cool waves from the body, owing to the large amount of electric particles emanating from the body. Woolens, being a conductor of magnetic emanations, may always be worn by people of the electric temperament without injury. Silk should not be worn, as it is absolutely injurious, for the reason that it partakes of the electric properties of the cocoon from which it is manufactured. The same is true of furs. Seal can be worn by electrical people to advantage, but not by magnetic ones. All furs from the animal of the feline (cat) tribe are electrical. * * *

Dr. Carson, it appears, is the discoverer and evangelist of a new and somewhat surprising physiology. He has discovered, for example, that the “two opposite poles of the nervous system” are the brain and the vermiform appendix. The old-school physiologists, he says, vastly underestimate the value of the appendix. In the first place they know nothing about its importance as a nervous pole, and in the second place they do not know that it is also needed to “form air vibrations to be sent backward and forward through the large intestine.” Cut it out, destroy these functions—and at once the whole organism goes to ruin. Those who have lost their appendices “usually become a prey to some mental disorder unfitting them for the battle of life, and often leading to an insane asylum.”

Other organs which have gained new dignity through Dr. Carson’s researches are the solar plexus, the spleen and the pineal gland. The solar plexus, he says, connects the brain with the vermiform appendix, and so enables magnetic currents to flow from one.to the other, the brain being positive and the appendix negative. As for the pineal gland and the spleen, Dr. Carson contents himself, at least for the present, with hints that they have “some secret purpose to perform.”

Unluckily enough, the good doctor’s discoveries in the physiology of the solar plexus are not new. They were anticipated four or five years ago, indeed, by Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Towne, of Holyoke, Mass., the grand archoness of all American New Thoughters. Professor Towne’s little treatise, “How to Wake the Solar Plexus,” is known to all devotees of piffle. Nearly 100,000 copies have been sold at 25 cents a copy. It preaches the doctrine that the solar plexus is “a centre or storehouse of life, power or energy.” For Prof. Dr. Towne it also seems to be a storehouse of money.

Besides his research work. Dr. Carson undertakes the treatment of patients at his Kansas City Krankenhaus. His book shows that he is not above using medicaments to reinforce magic. For example, this is his prescription for pneumonia:

Cover the congested parts of lungs or whole chest, and even the back for that matter, with hot poultices made of onions and rye meal, equal parts, thoroughly cooked. These poultices should be replaced by fresh ones every hour until patient is relieved.

Needless to say, Dr. Carson adds that “there should be plenty of fresh air in the room”—for the physician if not for the patient. Perhaps the obvious improvement of doing the whole thing on an open lot and in a stiff wind has already suggested itself to him. For “sore throat or tonsilitis” he prescribes “a little sulphur in molasses every hour”; for croup, camphor and lard; for diphtheria, “flowers of sulphur blown into the throat at intervals.”

But for Bright’s disease, neuralgia and locomotor ataxia he puts his whole faith in “vital treatment transmitted by the hands to the afflicted parts.” Thus:

In the treatment of neuralgia and rheumatism hold the hand over the affected part and relief will come in a few moments. After this pass the hands down the body in the region of the feet, always remembering, however, to wash the hands thoroughly after each treatment. * * * Swellings, sprains and bruises require rubbing * * * with both the right and left hands. In rheumatism and neuralgia the pain should be drawn out, and not scattored to adjacent parts of the body.

In the treatment of cancer by the psychic-sarcological process “the concentration of the mind on blue or purple and sending vibrations to the diseased part may perform healing effects.” “Chronic conditions of the stomach and liver” are helped by “making passes over the body.” For colds and la grippe “pass the left hand across the breast from shoulder to shoulder.” And so on, and so on.

An amusing and ingratiating old faker. No doubt his Kansas City “temple” bulges constantly with aching Now Thoughters! Long life to him!