[15] There are descriptions of healings of addiction, asthma, broken bones, cataracts, cancer, deafness, eczema, fibroid tumor, and rheumatism.

[17] The first edition was copyrighted by Eddy in 1875, in part to help separate her work from the "sea of metaphysical writing" circulating at the time.

[21][4] In 1985 however, following a legal suit brought by United Christian Scientists, a group which wanted to publish their own version of the book, the copyright extension was found unconstitutional by Federal District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.

Brown & Co. Their invoice for 1,000 copies, dated October 30, 1875, was made out to George M. Barry and Edward Hitchins for US$2,285.35.

However, there were hundreds of typographic errors, some because the printer, not understanding the author's meaning, had tried to correct the wording without consulting her.

Finally, the third edition printed by John Wilson at the University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was of a high standard.

Eddy remained loyal to the University Press for the rest of her life, and in 1897 even made a substantial investment to save it from bankruptcy.

[3] Eddy closed her Massachusetts Metaphysical College and left Boston in 1889, in order to revise the text for the 50th edition (1891).

It is well known as the foundational guidance for the Church of Christ, Scientist, but the book also managed to stir up questions about issues that so many male religious leaders and thinkers believed they had settled.

In writing about the first edition of Science and Health, feminist scholar and biographer Gillian Gill homes in on this point:[26] "The real issue is the author's audacity, her daring to think that a woman like her, with her resources, could write, not the expected textbook on mental healing techniques, not the comfortable compendium of healing anecdotes, but a book that takes on the great questions of God and man, good and evil, and that rejects orthodox verities."