absent treatment

noun

: treatment of a disease or condition provided (as through prayer) by one who is not present

The fever went down, and the boy rested well all night. Next morning it went up again, so I called the practitioner on the telephone, and she gave him an absent treatment.

—Minnie Collins, Christian Science Journal, April 1919

But those absent treatments, they fascinated me. Weige treated patients that he never saw. Did it with what he called a concentrated thought force. Give him a description of an ailing person, and the person's symptoms, and he'd treat the person simply by thinking about him, even if he were miles away.

—Leon Hale, Houston Chronicle, 4 July 2010

Word History

First Known Use

1886, in the meaning defined above

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