A year or two ago in Frankfurt there was a miracle-worker who cured the sick by the laying on of hands, just like Dr Charcot in Paris and the staff of the Institute of Gymnasts. But this miracle-worker had the unfortunate habit of saying prayers while he did so, which Dr Charcot supposedly does not do. Since the man was uneducated and could find no compelling explanation for his ability as a healer, he attributed it quite unassumingly to a higher power than his own. Because this impecunious man happened to have been taken up by a highly placed invalid, and thus gained renown, it soon became an accepted part of the liberal programme to snipe at him and his miracles. A storm of hate was whipped up against him, and every freethinker considered it his duty to himself and his principles to attack the miracle-worker at least once a week, thus making a charlatan of him. The doctors, who had found his practice unscientific and dangerous to public health in general, naturally fired a salvo and under the oppressive power of majority opinion every educated man had to have an insult at the ready to save himself from the suspicion of being one of the miracleworker's adherents. The fact remained, however, that the man cured certain illnesses, particularly nervous complaints, through the laying on of hands (and prayer).

I never saw the man but heard the outcry, and was careful not to raise any doubts about this enraged body of opinion that might have brought me and my family to grief.