A HEALING FORCE


"During the spring months an epidemic of diphtheria and other
infectious diseases visited a district of nine or ten villages in
New Mexico. Many children succumbed to these diseases, the number
of those who died being about one-tenth of the entire population
of the district.

"No people in the world are kinder-hearted than the Mexican
people. Everybody, even the children, visits the sick, and attends
the _velorios_ (wakes) and funeral rites of the dead, without
regard to the contagious character of the disease.

"This fatal custom is re-enforced by a fatalistic philosophy.
Whatever befalls one, he receives it with an '_Asi me toco_' (It
was my fate). Whatever comes, he says:

"'_Es par Dios_' (It is of God). Each man has his appointed time
to die. Until that time he is safe, and when that time comes
nothing can save him. There is no such thing as contagion; disease
strikes when and where God will. Medicine will cure, if it is the
will of God. What the medicine may be is of little importance; a
glass of water will cure as well as anything else, is a frequent
saying, if it is the will of God.

"She, the missionary nurse, thereupon took up her station in the
sick room, kept out the numerous callers, administered antitoxin,
and nursed the child back to life. She had saved the child. She
gave the antitoxin treatment in other cases where the parents were