Chapter IV: Introduction: II (1)

In the course of gathering opinions from various authoritative sources on the subject dealt with in this book, I received communications from Sir Clifford Allbutt, the Hon. Sydney Holland, and a well-known surgeon, which, though they do not constitute separate treatises, are so important, not only in view of the distinction of the authors, but of the broad survey of the subject that they afford, that I venture to print them as part of the general introduction.

In the case of Sir Clifford Allbutt’s paper I have supplemented it by an important extract from one of his recent writings.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEDICINE AND RELIGION

The response you are good enough to desire can be but brief, crude, and, I fear, too blunt; but I have not time for careful consideration. I can only indicate a few points which occur to me offhand, and taking much for granted. For instance, I must avoid any discussion of those antinomies which meet us at every side of human conceptions, and be content to accept the common uses. The chief of these (for the moment) is that of the material and spiritual; without forgetting that they melt at their borders the one into the other, and that we meet with corresponding ambiguities, yet I must take them as distinct fields of human life. In our interesting personal conversation you may remember that I expressed the opinion that, on the whole, our prayers must not be for material but for spiritual things. And, speaking on the whole, sickness is a material thing. In the stories of our Lord’s miracles it has always struck me that He regarded His miracles--I must use the word for brevity--apologetically. The disciples were not to tell any man of them; or again, a miracle was performed under a compelling sense of the overwhelming faith of the pleader, which was the main thing. Faith, prayer, were to be for the needs of the soul, not of the body. For instance, the father seeing his child in diphtheria would please God better--so the experience of His world tells us--by spending his first hour in seeking the physician with his antidote rather than in prayer for a divine intervention. And when time came for prayer he would pray not for a suspension of natural law but for unity of his own will with that of the Father, and for the child’s spiritual welfare. Into the origin of evil do not fear that I shall enter; it is one of the antinomies which I have said that we must avoid, at any rate at present: I can only now say that disease is a material effect to be combated by material means, and not by religious processions or intercessions.

This being my view, I would try to eliminate notions of the priest as medicine man; they are essentially pagan, though to this day they more or less unconsciously influence our thoughts on the present subject.

But, it may be said, strange healings do take place under religious influences; and this is true. And at no time in history were such miraculous cures more frequent and wonderful than in the temples of Aesculapius or of Serapis. Modern cures, whether of the Eddyites or at Lourdes, or the like elsewhere, when compared with those of the Roman Empire fall into insignificance. Now a careful study of all reported cures of this miraculous or miraculoid kind, a study illustrated for us many years ago by Charcot, proved to him, and proves to the expert observers of to-day, that they all--palsies, convulsions and the rest, often inveterate cases--are and have been cures of one disease, and of one only, namely hysteria; a malady which in its protean manifestations mocks all and any particular diseases. I say this of the genuine cases; but the majority of such wonders recorded turn out on inquiry (like the ‘Grimsby’ case) to be grossly exaggerated or wholly false. The ‘miraculous cures’ then, so far as they are genuine, are cures by suggestion: they take their place with cures of the same kind of disorder by panic, such as an alarm of fire; by ‘hypnotism,’ or by any other over-mastering impression which startles or transports the balance of the bodily functions from one centre of equilibrium to another higher and more stable one.

So much for the ‘miracles’; which owe nothing to any sacerdotal magic, and to the physician are part of a familiar experience, and of a familiar interpretation. But giving up the hysterical cases--which, by the way, is to give up a good deal--and admitting that disease is in the body a material thing, and one not properly matter for the pleading of prayer, except in the spiritual sense of submission to the Divine order, between these positions is there a sphere in which spiritual influences--whether by a clergyman or a Biblewoman or a gentle friend--may so infuse peace and confidence into a sick man as to promote even in the body a renewal, a conversion, or an economy of energy which should make for recovery? Certainly; and here, I think, is the restricted, if still important, sphere of religion as medical.

To consider this aspect of the matter we must go back for a moment to certain principles. From the letters of Teresa--that noble saint--we may learn much of the greatest value to us in the present inquiry. We may learn from her to distrust the ‘ecstasies and melancholies’ which--as she said--were ‘the perils of conventual life’; she roundly denounced all that ‘letting one’s self go, outside the control of reason,’ which has its origin in ‘sick brains.’

‘If I were with you,’ she wrote to a certain Prioress, ‘you would not have so many extraordinary experiences.’ Now Teresa not only apprehended, but thoroughly understood, that the highest spiritual life depends upon the best bodily health. She tells us that she supported her own vigils with plenty of meat (_viande_) and sleep. High and holy thought demands the greatest effort of the healthiest body, of the brain most finely balanced and best nourished. The piety of the sick-bed is at best a passive piety, which on recovery is pushed aside again by the custom of the world; but herein it is that in sickness the soul flags and droops upon itself, and that the support of other sympathy is more precious. The sympathy we all depend on in health we need most when enfeebled by ailment. There is no delusion more terrible than that which lets a man run up a score of sins and negligences to be repented of under the discouragement of a sick-bed. In this melancholy, this debility, this disappointment, perhaps this remorse, energy is wasted which is sorely required for the conflict with disease. And even the man of religious life likewise--if in less degree, as one who has accumulated more inward light--is also disheartened to perceive that the fountains of spiritual contemplation are then less copious, and aspiration a wearier effort. He too needs help, if not to make, yet to reinforce, the happier conversations of his fuller life. In health the mind in solitude droops and wastes, and the sick-bed is a kind of solitude; the thousand and one stimulating impressions of common life cease, the impressions wane which should keep the mind and soul awake, and fill the wells of energy. On the sick-bed, therefore, short times of encouragement and sympathy, periods not long enough to exhaust the scanty stores of energy, are precious; and if the physician be jealous--as it has been said--of the priest, it is lest he should expend these stores more in priestly functions than in ‘angels’ visits’ of love and hope which would unite and reinforce the vacillating and fading forces. Thus also prayer at the bedside and the short communions should be of love and hope, not particular requests for material relief or cure. The kindly physician himself may be a vehicle of much of this encouragement; but--as I said to you before--he should avoid even the semblance of attending to anything beside his own business of material aid and general human sympathy. The most pious patient, openly or inwardly, resents the divided mind. The instinct of self-preservation is not lost even in those nearest to God.

So when all is said and done on this subject I fear that matters for me remain much where they were before; but they may lead to a more intimate understanding of the several parts of the spiritual and the medical visitors, and to a completer sympathy between them. If still it be urged that an imposing ceremony may, by a measure of the ‘suggestion’ so effective in the many-coloured hysteria, come to our aid in more noxious maladies, if no more than on the fringe of them, I should repeat that the advantage would be so indefinite, so relatively small, and so well to be attained by ordinary spiritual visitation, as not to be worth the peril of the moral perversion which hangs only too closely around these good intentions, the peril of imposing upon, even of bamboozling, the patient. We must remember the saying of Lavoisier, ‘Medicine came into the world with a twin brother, called charlatanism.’

Clifford Allbutt.

* * * * *

Extract from Sir Clifford Allbutt’s paper in the _British Medical Journal_, June 18, 1910:

‘Spiritual gifts may or may not consist in the insertion of a new entity, they certainly do consist in a reanimation and remodelling of thinking matter in the uppermost strands of the brain, and probably of some other, perhaps even of all the other, molecular activities of the body. Probably no limb, no viscus is so far a vessel of dishonour as to lie wholly outside the renewals of the spirit; and to an infinite intelligence every accession of spiritual life would be apparent in a new harmony (συγγυμνασία) of each and all of the metabolic streams and confluences of the body. On this conviction it is that the hopes and methods of faith healing depend. Conversely, every man who watches his own life must know this, as in time of weariness or pain he grieves over the drooping of his soul, that the highest spiritual life depends on the highest bodily health; but this health means, not health only of the belly, not only health of the heart and common brain, but also of the rarest and most exquisite textures of the cerebral web. If in a rude health of the grosser body these subtlest parts have not been exercised and cherished, the total harmony is diminished; highly efficient as, on lower planes, the particular body may be, it is defective in comprehensions, it is an inconsummate body. To this “materialism” of the body, even on its most spiritual planes of structure, we must not close our eyes lest in our search beyond knowledge we walk contrary to knowledge. “To pray well,” said the noble Teresa, “one must eat well and sleep well.” If into the last analysis the Pauline division between the carnal and the spiritual cannot be carried, if under the relations of other times and of other ideas we have to re-interpret it, yet still in its broader contrasts it points out a plain way of life and conduct--one so plain that the perplexities of the middle terms may be left to the casuist.

‘It must be granted then, in respect of faith healing, that spiritual influences, divine directly, or indirectly through human mediation, may to some unknown power radiate from these highest currents downward through the more and more “material” planes, arousing them less and less as they have become more and more statical in order.

‘Once more; it is said that in his “subliminal self” man possesses a substance peculiarly divine, or a substance or means through which we may reach divine communion, or through which especially divine purposes may be fulfilled in us. It is true that we do not know even approximately the content of the individual man, the materials racially and personally acquired, the products of past experience, racial and personal, built sensibly and insensibly into his personality. May we not each of us be compared with a ship which began its voyage with no inconsiderable rudimentary equipment, then, calling at many a port, has gathered many kinds of stores and treasure? Of some of these stores, of some variety of them, the supercargo has a recollection, especially of those in frequent use; but, for the most part, the bills of lading had been lost. Unlike a cargo, however, these contents are not a passive burden, but a system of coefficients; some on planes which we commonly call material, some on spiritual planes, some working on the surface, some working stealthily within; so that much tact and insight are necessary to unveil and to re-animate those agencies in whose abeyance disorder or ineffectualness may happen to consist. And the influences which are to effect these revivals must be akin in nature to these kinds respectively; some must be solidly material--such as splints or drugs--some must be religious, moral, and even intellectual, yet inspired by emotion, by appeal to hope and joy; and their instruments must be devotion, sympathy, gladness, reasonable persuasion, and even surprise.’

RELIGION AND MEDICINE IN THE HOSPITAL

No one who has been connected with one of our big general hospitals can doubt for a moment the advisability of the collaboration of the physician and the clergyman, each helping the patient from his own standpoint. It must not be imagined that I advocate any usurping of the duties of one by the other, but in the cure of certain types of disease, and certainly in the cure of diseases that are primarily diseases of mind or character, the doctor should welcome the minister of religion as a valuable ally. In fact none can doubt that the minister of religion can bring a power to bear on the mind of a patient, which the doctor cannot.

Whatever his own personal belief may be, the medical man can of course only view religion from a philosophic or ethical stand-point. It is difficult for him to concern himself with dogma. The clergyman can help by administering suggestions of hope and encouragement. These suggestions can and do often come from other sources with equal results, but I think by virtue of his office the clergyman is specially qualified for the work.

There can be no doubt that cures of certain kinds of diseases have been effected by Christian Science and kindred faith-healing cults, all of which cures come under the head of healing by suggestion. I do not think that healing disease by suggestion is specially a Christian work, it can be achieved in many ways. But I think the average medical man likely to be more willing to seek the aid of a duly accredited minister of religion than a so-called ‘Spiritual Healer’ who is subject to no authority. But above and beyond all this I think the quieting and encouraging influences of religion are of the greatest value in all illness, and I believe a greater use might be made of such power.

Sydney Holland.

THE SURGEON, THE CLERGYMAN, AND THE PATIENT

Possibly the gravest shock that a human being may receive, so far as it concerns himself or herself, is to be told that fatal disease is present in the system. So great may be the actual shock that many a medical practitioner shrinks from inflicting it, and purposely avoids direct allusion to the certainty of dissolution. Whether this is justifiable or no, depends very largely upon the susceptibilities of the patient and the tact of the doctor. But the word ‘operation’ is, by some, almost as much dreaded as the word ‘death’; in fact even more, as it always implies to the lay mind the infliction of hours of pain, and days of discomfort, though this is far from being the truth in most instances.

‘Rather let me die than make me undergo an operation’ is the not infrequent remark of the highly-strung sufferer. And then comes in all the sympathy, tact, and good breeding of the surgeon. He will gently explain matters, will show how the disease is such that nothing short of removal of the growth holds out the least chance of life or the avoidance of later severe pain, and will state, what is the truth, that the operation, short and sharp, will give years of freedom from suffering even if it does not completely remove all trace of the trouble. How bewildered the patient will feel! He has been hoping against hope that his malady is only a slight one, and that it may be ‘dispersed’ by some magic of physic, and now his hopes have been rudely mocked and shattered. Surely here, if ever, help from an outside source is needed and should be welcomed. But such help must be rational, based on truth, and fearing not the consequences.

Supposing the disease is cancer, what awaits him if the sufferer flies to the quack and is befooled till all hope of successful treatment is gone? Or rushes to the Christian Scientist, who, with seeming _bona fides_, avers there is no such thing as a cancer cell! The eye that has seen it a hundred times under the microscope, and can recognise it amongst a hundred other varieties, does not exist in the purblind conception of such a ‘Scientist,’ for the cell is matter, it cannot exist, and neither for the same reasoning, if consistency is maintained, can the eye which sees the cell exist, for it also is material.

And still as the growth increases there is the lurking certainty ever protruding itself that after all the surgeon was right, and the days are slipping by. Would that friends could be true and friends indeed, and not in ignorance hinder these circumstances, not mere blind leaders of the blind.

It is here if anywhere the enlightened clergyman and the surgeon may join hands for the good of spirit and body. And then when a decision has been arrived at calmly and deliberately, and the time of the operation has been fixed, there is still work for both the minister and the surgeon to do. A quiet talk and prayer the evening before the ordeal, how it has often soothed the trembling soul, and invoked a night of rest and refreshment, enabling the patient to meet the trials of the morning calm, because mentally and physically there has been repose.

And the surgeon with his cheering word, and the anæsthetist with his quiet reassuring manner and conversation, both tend to allay any fresh alarm at that which is perhaps the most trying moment of all--the placing oneself unreservedly in the hands of the operator.

Surely, surely here is a period when the efforts of the spiritual are to crown the success of the material.

And then, observe how the quiet and confidence, engendered by the combined efforts of pastor and doctor, continue during convalescence, causing that period to be shortened in many a case.

In a hundred different ways members of the two professions may work hand in hand, but each should be able to mutually esteem the other and give to each his proper place and function. They ought never to despise one another, because they ought never to encroach on one another’s province.

Till the clergyman recognises that it is his duty to understand something of elementary physiology, if he is going to be a benefactor to spirit and body, and the medical practitioner is willing to admit that there are spiritual forces which can be brought to help the perfection of his work, so long is it the opinion of the writer that the sufferer who looks to both of them for aid will fail to receive his full due of assistance. May the time soon come when the rising generation of all classes may be so taught at school, and in church, that they will come to understand something of the composition and need of the tripartite nature of man, and may the day speedily dawn when the enlightened clerical and medical professions mutually work for the good of the whole, spirit, soul and body.

F.R.C.S.

MEDICINE AND RELIGION

BY

CHARLES BUTTAR, M.D.

SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF THE HARVEIAN SOCIETY

MEDICINE AND RELIGION

BY CHARLES BUTTAR, M.D.

Widespread interest has been taken of late in what is called ‘Spiritual Healing,’ or ‘Healing by Spiritual means’; interest which is manifest from the popularity of such books as ‘Religion and Medicine,’ and ‘Body and Soul,’ no less than from the thoughtful articles contributed to this volume by many eminent authorities. Yet it may be observed that, although some of these contributors belong to the profession of medicine, it is doubtful if many medical men are acquainted with the objects and purpose of Spiritual Healing, and probably few of them regard the movement seriously. It is unwise, however, to adopt an attitude of indifference towards the aspirations of earnest men, so that it seems well to attempt to define the position of medicine with regard to such methods of healing, to investigate the cures alleged, to utter some warning as to possible dangers, and to inquire how far the results justify the movement, and to what extent it is possible to adapt the processes of Spiritual Healing to recognised forms of treatment.

Spiritual Healing has been hailed with enthusiasm by certain members of the Church of England, under the impression that it constitutes a resumption of the early powers of Christianity as evidenced in the miracles of healing ascribed to Christ and His Apostles. A theological discussion as to the possibility of miracles occurring at the present day is outside the scope of this article, but it would be well to define the standpoint from which the medical man approaches all investigations connected with disease.

The researches of scientists are conducted by the methods of observation, experiment, and induction; it is the medical man’s duty to observe symptoms, to experiment as to their cause, to investigate possible remedies, and to apply these to the relief or cure of disease. In recent times much has been done towards elucidating the influences of mind upon body and its diseases; but so far questions connected with the Spirit have been regarded as outside the scope of medicine.

The minister of religion, on the other hand, has been content hitherto to leave questions of physical health to be dealt with by the doctor; he has not interfered to any extent in mental questions, and his chief concern has been with what is called the ‘Spirit.’ It would seem a little difficult to define the attributes of Spirit, or to draw a sharp line of division between spirit and mind; but, however this may be, spirit has usually been considered as opposed to matter, and no influence over the material diseases of the body has been ascribed to it. Whatever views the Church may have held as to the miracles of healing mentioned in the New Testament, she has to some extent kept them in the background; and it is possible that they might have remained there, but for the success obtained by certain irrational cults that have sprung into being, with the object apparently of abolishing both parson and doctor. The foundation on which all these sects are based would seem to be a passage in the Epistle of St. James, chap. v. verses 14, 15, which reads as follows: ‘Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the Church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.’

Again this is no place to go into theological discussions, such as whether ‘elder’ can be taken to mean ‘priest,’ the views to be held on anointing with oil, and so on. But it may be suggested incidentally that the term ‘elder’ is hardly likely to be accepted by either the Church or the medical profession as applicable to a person untrained both in theology and in medicine, whose claim to authority rests on his own assertion, and whose methods are only too liable to drift into what is known as ‘quackery.’ Even the Peculiar People, who rely upon the same text in support of their tenets, retain, I believe, some meaning of authority in the word ‘elder’; and their position seems logically sounder than that of the believer in a self-styled ‘Spiritual Healer.’

As regards the procedure of the Spiritual Healer, it would appear to consist in laying hands on the affected part of the body, at the same time offering up extempore prayers of a very impassioned character for the recovery of the sick. The treatment takes place in as impressive surroundings as possible, and at times a priest is called in to anoint the patient with oil. It is doubtful to what extent the practitioners of Spiritual Healing claim what are called ‘special powers’; but it seems certain that the possession of these powers is sometimes alleged. Unlike the Christian Scientist, the Spiritual Healer does not despise medical assistance, though it is probable that at the present time his treatment is sought chiefly by those to whom medical methods can offer no further hope of cure.

It has been indicated already that the first great difficulty experienced by a medical man, in discussing such a treatment as Spiritual Healing, is the definition of terms. Accustomed to deal with more or less concrete facts, a doctor has some sort of mental picture of an infectious disease, as the reaction of the physical body to the invasion of a germ or its poison; he can see and feel a tumour, and determine its relation to anatomical structures, though he may not know as yet the cause of its growth; he has learnt by experience the results of the removal of new growths.

In the region of the mind also he has investigated many phenomena; he is able to attribute many insane states to toxic influences; he has studied to some extent diseases known as ‘functional’--a class that is becoming numerically less with the advance of knowledge; but he is not able to grasp to the same extent the meaning of the word ‘Spirit.’ The medical man recognises in many cases the influence of the temperament or character of the patient upon the course of the disease, and would prefer to treat one who takes a hopeful view of the future; just as he desires quiet cheerful surroundings, and the avoidance of conditions that tend to irritate or depress. In so far as the ‘Spiritual’ attitude of the patient conduces to his peace of mind, its assistance would be welcomed by every practitioner of the healing art. But to regard this ill-defined attitude as not only influencing the character of the patient, but also as having a direct effect on all the ailments to which the body is subject, is a view that can hardly be accepted so readily. For example, it would seem to be inconceivable that Spirit could have the slightest influence on a parasitic skin disease such as ringworm.

This is an instance of a simple ailment due to a local extrinsic cause. Numerous other conditions might be mentioned, such as congenital malformation, aneurysms, valvular affections of the heart, and strangulated hernia in which curative influence of the Spirit is difficult to imagine. Even if a single well-authenticated miracle in a case of any of these affections could be produced, we should still be met by many difficulties; such as the question why a solitary sufferer, possibly not highly distinguished for his spiritual attributes, should be selected for the manifestation of this power. And all rational people would admit that the occurrence of such a miracle in a case of strangulated hernia would not justify other patients in postponing operation in the hope of a repetition of this bloodless cure.

Thus there are limitations to the field of operation of Spiritual Healing.

In view, however, of the hopes raised amongst many good Christians that the Church may take part once more in healing the sick, everyone would wish to avoid offending the susceptibilities of enthusiastic and religious people. Still it is by members of the Church that the question of Spiritual Healing has been brought forward, so that it should be for the Church to define her meaning and wishes. In the nature of things it seems impossible to define ‘Spirit’; and, perhaps, it would be wiser not to attempt the impossible, nor to endeavour to yoke spiritual forces to purely material conditions such as bodily diseases. But if certain cases are produced as cures by spiritual means, and if the co-operation of the medical profession is desired in investigating such cures, the Church must be prepared to accept scientific methods of inquiry, methods which do not permit of assumptions except as tentative explanations, to be given up when they fail to explain phenomena, or when they are replaced by simpler explanations.

If it should appear that the results of Spiritual Healing are attributable to ordinary activities of the human mind, and that no difference exists between cures by this means and those resulting from ordinary mental influences of the nature of ‘suggestion,’ then the Church must be prepared to abandon all miraculous explanations in these cases. From the medical point of view the main thing to be insisted upon is that all alleged cures must be submitted to the ordinary examination by observation, experiment, and induction.

At the present time the whole question of Spiritual Healing is in so nebulous a condition that it is not easy to obtain suitable cases for investigation. Much has been said and written on the matter; comparisons have been made with the cures said to be effected at Lourdes; even the Venerable Bede has been quoted as an authority on medicine. But when a request is presented for the production of actual cases for investigation by trained medical men, it is found that the sources of supply are few and very limited.

An examination of some of these cases appears to reveal the fact that so far no actual cure of any definite gross organic disease can be recorded. It must be remembered that to avoid any loophole for error the requirements of a really scientific investigation are somewhat severe. In the first place the diagnosis of the disease must be absolutely certain. This frequently necessitates microscopical or bacteriological examination. A medical man is not always infallible in his opinion of cases; and it may happen that a condition that has been thought to be cancer turns out to be merely a comparatively harmless inflammatory thickening. Such a condition might have recovered by natural processes without any treatment; to attribute such recovery to any particular treatment that the patient might be undergoing at the time would be rash; to use such a case as an advertisement for that treatment would be dishonest.

In the second place, a fair comparison must be made between the results obtained by the method under investigation, and by other means of treatment. Warts may disappear rapidly under many forms of treatment, or with no treatment at all. To attribute the disappearance of warts to Spiritual Healing would be very unsafe argument.

Thirdly, a careful distinction must be drawn between the cure of a disease and the relief of subjective symptoms.

It is in this matter of subjective symptoms that Spiritual Healing appears to have obtained the greater part of whatever success it can boast. There is some evidence that under this treatment pain may be relieved, and there is little doubt that patients attain a calmer, happier and more confident frame of mind, however hopeless their disease may be. Their outlook on life is improved, their thoughts are directed into other channels, and the pain is forgotten, or hindered from rising into consciousness.

Yet there are certain dangers connected with the process, to which attention should be called. It is well to remember that, in cases such as incurable cancer, false hopes are being raised, and the patient is deluded into a vain belief that he will recover. How far this is justifiable is a matter for philosophical discussion; moreover it is true that most doctors allow their patients to delude themselves with the same vain hopes. Still, it might be better that ministers of religion should strive for the spiritual welfare of their charges, rather than help directly to maintain these delusions as to physical conditions.

More important still is the possibility that treatment, that might be effective in the early stage of a disease, may be postponed until too late, in order that a trial may be given to Spiritual Healing. It is all very well to say that ordinary medical means are recognised and that the follies of the Peculiar People and of the Christian Scientist will be avoided; but it must be remembered that a literal reading of the text of St. James undoubtedly may suggest to a deeply religious person that medical methods are of minor importance. ‘The Prayer of Faith shall save the Sick’: is it not possible that the sufferer may possess a grain of that faith that will remove mountains? And in the end that small focus of malignant disease, that might have been eradicated by the surgeon’s knife, has extended and disseminated itself until all hope of cure is gone. And such results are more likely to follow while this treatment remains in the hands of untrained laymen. There is great danger that an earnest person, with limited knowledge both of theology and of medicine, may come to regard himself as superior to theologian and physician, owing to the fervour of his faith, combined possibly with a belief that he is endowed with special powers. It is on practical points such as these that the medical man is entitled to expect an expression of the views of the Church; and in this connexion it is permissible to hope that in the examination of ‘special powers’ the authorities of the Church will be content to be sceptics, in the true sense of the word, until irrefutable proofs of the possession of these powers are produced.

In attempting to inquire how far the results obtained by Spiritual Healing justify the movement, the medical man is met by the difficulty that exists in obtaining evidence. It is true that there is a Society whose objects are stated thus:

1. For the cultivation, through spiritual means, of both personal and corporate health.

2. For the restoration to the Church of the Scriptural practice of Divine Healing.

3. For the study of the influence of Spiritual upon Physical well-being.

Investigation of the literature published by this Society does not throw much light on the methods by which these objects are pursued. A pamphlet entitled ‘The Principles of Spiritual Healing’ seemed to arouse hopes of elucidating the problem. Yet the author says, ‘I do not know how “life” is affected by spiritual means, I observe that it is so.’ There is no attempt to define spiritual means. Again, it is asserted that no one will ever find, at meetings of the Society, a parade of successful cases. Is the statement, then, of members of the Society to be the only evidence vouchsafed to inquirers? And how far is the second object of the Society to be carried? It must be remembered that the Scriptural practice of Divine Healing was unassociated with the ordinary medical treatment. In ‘The Principles of Spiritual Healing’ it is asserted that miracles of healing did not cease; they have only become less frequent because faith is less intense. The second object of the Society is to restore to the Church this practice of healing; and it is difficult to see how the dangers suggested earlier in this article are to be avoided.

The fact of the matter is, that it is useless to attempt to adapt the processes of Spiritual Healing to recognised forms of treatment, until the exponents of the method cease to soar on the wings of the imagination, and descend instead to the more prosaic levels of reason. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that theologians equally earnest, but far more rational than the founder of the Society to which reference has been made, are anxious that something should be done by the Church to assist in the work of restoring the sick to health. These men do not aspire to work the miracles of Christ and the Apostles by laying on hands and anointing with oil, but they wish to retain for the Church some portion of the command ‘Preach the Gospel; heal the sick.’ This wish is entitled to respectful consideration by the medical profession, and most certainly will receive it from broad-minded medical men. But inasmuch as the trained physician must be paramount in his own province of mental and bodily disease, it is the duty of the minister of religion to recognise that he is subservient in purely physical matters of health. By all means let him visit those of his own faith who are sick. Let his object be to inspire these patients with hope, directing the sufferer’s thoughts away from his disease to higher things. The laying on of hands and the anointing with oil may well be dangerous, unless used in a purely symbolic sense; for in the minds of the more ignorant such proceedings tend to occupy the same position as the treatment for King’s Evil in former times; and admirable though the spirit of reverence may be, it is not good to attribute miraculous powers to the object revered.

Therefore, let the clergyman be content, for the present, to leave the untrained practice of methods of suggestion to quacks; and investigation of so-called cures to the medical profession. At the same time, let the medical man avail himself of the services of the minister of religion in cases in which exhortation is likely to be of use; for in the field of functional nervous conditions, and slight mental disturbances, the help of a priest of forceful character, reasonably controlled, may be of great service.

In concluding this article a summary of the suggestions offered for consideration may be made:

(1) The main function of the minister of religion should be concerned with what is called the spiritual side of man, and not with purely material conditions, such as disease.

(2) If ministers regard the Scriptures as imposing upon them duties in healing the sick, they should be content to be subservient to the physician in material conditions that are not included in their training.

(3) In dealing with phenomena as specific as diseases, the Church must be prepared to accept scientific explanations. It is useless to complain of the materialism of doctors in connexion with material physical disorders.

(4) It is not unlikely that the effects of spiritual healing will prove to be merely results of a form of suggestion.

(5) Results that can be described as curative will be found, probably, only in what are known as functional and neurotic conditions.

(6) It is most unwise to countenance untrained laymen in carrying on spiritual healing in the name of the Church; for in the end the Church may find herself dragged at the heels of quackery.

(7) While much can be done by ministers of religion in encouraging sufferers from disease, or in distracting the attention of neurasthenics, and while such assistance should be welcomed by medical men, yet the Church should beware of attempting to attract believers by means of thaumaturgic displays of healing, which are open to explanation in other ways. The Church should not enter into competition with bone-setters, osteopaths, physical culture quacks, and other undesirable persons.

(8) Opinion on so-called ‘special powers’ should be suspended until alleged instances of their existence have been thoroughly investigated by competent trained experts.

THE PATIENT

BY

STEPHEN PAGET, F.R.C.S.

THE PATIENT

BY STEPHEN PAGET, F.R.C.S.

The Bishop of Birmingham wrote to me, last year, the following letter. He gave me leave to publish it in the second edition of a book of mine about Christian Science: and he gives me leave to publish it again here:

‘... I should wish to make a little more of your admissions as to Mental Therapeutics. Thus--If, as you admit, there are so many functional disorders; and they are curable by mental influences; and religion is a great mental influence; and this influence (“Quietism”) is much needed in such and other cases--I should demand of the Church that it should recognise, far more explicitly, this field of legitimate curative power, and control it, and claim it by showing the power to use it. The neglect of this sphere of influence by the Church plays into the hands of Christian Science. (All this could be associated with the revival of unction.)

‘Also, I think the medical profession likes--in public--to ignore all this, and thus in its turn plays into the hands of pseudo-theology. My criticism is that I want your “admissions” made the basis of a more positive claim both on the Church and on the medical profession.

‘My own experience in the case of well-to-do people when sick or dying is that the medical profession is very much inclined to exclude religion in any form from sick beds till it cannot be of any use. I do most seriously want to reform (1) the Church, (2) the medical profession, in the light of what you admit.’

This wise letter says all, to my thinking, that need be said as to the duty of the doctor towards the cleric, and the duty of the cleric towards the doctor. It says not a word about the signs and wonders alleged by the Society of Emmanuel in London: and I hope that Dr. Gore, by his silence, condemns them, as not worthy of credence. I hope, also, and am sure, that in a few years we shall hear less about that Society. Meanwhile, I should like to say something about one aspect of this matter of ‘spiritual healing,’ which has not received so much attention as it deserves. We have heard all about the cleric, all about the doctor: and we are in danger, I think, of forgetting the patient. We have been tempted to believe that the patient, somehow, belongs to the cleric and the doctor. That we may clear our minds of this mistake, let us put ourselves in the patient’s place. Most of us, I suppose, know that place: I have been there half a dozen times. It is the centre of a great planetary system of kind people. Home love, and the affection of my friends, and the pleasant goodwill of the servants, and the wisdom and the gentleness of doctors and of nurses, and all prayers for my recovery, wheeled round me, each in its appointed course. There I lay, and was watched, like a big baby: and these activities of the spiritual life encircled me, day and night, till I got better. The point is, that it all came naturally to everybody. It was the habit of the home, it was our usual way of doing things. My friends did not suddenly begin to care for me: the doctors and the nurses did not suddenly begin to be gentle: the maids were not stung by the splendour of a sudden thought for my comfort: the use of prayer on my behalf was nothing new. Everybody was kind to me, because everybody in the house always is kind to me. They made me comfortable, and one prayed for me, because they are always making me comfortable, and one daily prays for me. All of us, except myself, were doing what we always do: and I was being what I always am.

Illness, nine times out of ten, no more changes a man than sleep and exercise change him. As by a long sleep, or a long day in the open air, we gain tranquillity, insight, and self-judgment, so, by an illness, we gain, if we will, a like measure of self-improvement. The same good thoughts come to us, as we lie idle in a sick-bed, which come to us as we lie idle, in holiday time, on a hillside. An illness, apart from its drawbacks, is in reality a sort of holiday, a dull but not unprofitable vacation, something halfway between a real holiday and what religious people call a retreat. There is no sudden change in the patient’s mind and outlook: only, there is more inlook, more self-doubt, more quietness of vision.

One day, I shall put myself in the patient’s place, and not come out of it: I shall not get well, but die. On that occasion, the love, sympathy, goodwill, medical attendance, and prayers, will be the same as before. They will swing round me once more, each in its proper sphere, these familiar angels and ministers of grace defending me. But, as I begin to stop, so they will begin to stop. It will become absurd, for my friends to call and ask after me; absurd, for the household to devise plans for my comfort; absurd, for the doctors to try to feel what is left of my pulse; absurd, for anybody to pray for my recovery. Spiritual processes are blessed with plenty of common-sense: they leave off, when it becomes downright foolishness to go on. Let them leave what remains of me, and start again round another centre.

They who desire, extravagantly, to put ‘spiritual healing’ among the methods of the Christian ministry, seem to me to be losing sight of this fact, that common-sense is an essential part of the spiritual life. Common-sense tells me, that as I was intended to live, so I am intended to die. I cannot see any reason, human or divine, why I should live to old age, and die of that. I would rather not: anyhow, I see no reason why I should. God, who brought me into the world by my mother’s pain, will some day put me out of the world, by my own pain. He is in no sense more on the side of life than on the side of death. I have been looking at the ‘Order for the Visitation of the Sick’ in the Prayer-book and I am quite sure that nobody now could write anything half so sensible or so majestical.... _Know this, that Almighty God is the Lord of life and death, and of all things to them pertaining, as youth, strength, health, age, weakness, and sickness. Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness is, know you certainly, that it is God’s visitation._ And the prayer for a sick child, also, seems to me a very sensible and beautiful piece of writing. I find, also, a prayer for a sick person, ‘when there appeareth small hope of recovery.’ I have heard it read over one at the point of death, when there was no hope at all of recovery. ‘We know,’ it says, ‘that, if Thou wilt, Thou canst even yet raise him up.’ I hope that I shall not, when I am dying, hear this phrase. It rings false, to my thinking: it offends the natural dignity of a dying man. We doctors are blamed, now and again, for not telling the truth to patients hopelessly ill: but here is the Prayer-book, at the last moment, hardly more straightforward. All the same, this Order for the Visitation of the Sick is admirable; and I desire to contrast it with the following instance, how Christian Science treats the dying:

‘Mrs. ---- is a widow, and an old friend of mine. In February 1905, her only child, a boy of eleven, was in the last stage of a hopeless illness--mitral valvular heart disease, with rheumatism and dropsy. I had an opportunity of a few minutes’ talk with the Christian Science “practitioner”--a sweet, gentle, earnest woman--and asked her if she really thought she would do any good. “Oh yes,” she replied, with a smile of confidence; “I have never known a failure.” “But,” I suggested, “the boy is very seriously ill:” and I explained the nature of his complaint. Still confidently smiling, the practitioner replied, “We have had worse cases than this.” I told her the best medical advice had been taken, and the doctors had all given the boy up. Upon which the lady remarked, with gentle emphasis, “_God_ has not given him up.” That of course was conclusive, and I left her to do her best. I went away at ten o’clock, and then the Scientist seated herself by the patient, read to him from the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s book, and exhorted him in some such language as this: “You must not think you are ill, my dear little boy. You are _not_ ill: you _can’t_ be ill. God would not make you ill. He made all things good, but not illness”--and so on, and so on. The boy, I am told, heard her patiently but wearily, and at one-thirty he died. Then the practitioner gathered up her books and papers and went away, and that is the end of the story.’

Here we have Christian Science in a favourable light: all the same, it is not a pleasant picture, these falsehoods told to a dying child. If it be not true that God ‘makes illness,’ and if it be not true that God ‘gives us up,’ then I attach no meaning at all to that Name.

Let us put ourselves at that point of the case where there appeareth small hope of recovery. The doctors have given the patient up. God, in their opinion, has done the same. The cleric will not say that, not in so many words: _Yet_, he says, _forasmuch as in all appearance the time of his dissolution draweth near, so fit and prepare him, we beseech Thee, against the hour of death, that after his departure hence in peace, and in Thy favour, his soul may be received into Thine everlasting Kingdom_. The cleric does not pray for the patient’s recovery. He does not expect anything to happen, save the patient’s death. He will not point-blank deny the possibility of a miracle: but he neither asks for anything to happen, nor, so far as I can see, wants anything to happen: he only cares to be sure that the patient, who is fast going, shall go the right way.

It is here, on this edge of time between life and death, that the professional spiritual healer loves to perform. He desires to make something happen: he will not take it for granted that nothing will happen.

His position is logical, and may be held in absolute sincerity. Only, he is bound to tell us what, in his experience, does happen: and he is bound to tell us of every case of failure, or partial failure. And we are bound to examine, test, cross-examine, criticise, analyse, watch, and almost spy upon every scrap of his work; and that in a spirit of hard and well-nigh brutal indifference to his belief in himself as a channel of divine intervention. What else does he expect of us? What else are we here for?

Among a pile of letters and pamphlets on my table is a tract called ‘New Eyes in answer to Prayer.’ It gives the case of Mr. Evison, of Grimsby. He had something the matter with his eyes. At last, ‘while walking out with a friend one day, I put my hand in my pocket for something, and dropped it on the ground: on stooping down to pick it up, the remaining pieces of my eyes dropped out of their sockets on to the ground. They were about the size of the kernel of a nut.’ So he went to a ‘Divine Healing Home,’ where he was anointed with oil in the name of the Lord. Ten days later, as he was praying in his bedroom, he felt two warm fingers touch his empty sockets, and they became warm. Later, at a prayer meeting, his eyes ‘came wide open,’ and he saw perfectly. Next day he testified to his recovery; and, says the tract, ‘When this testimony was given by Mr. Evison, there were fifty-seven cases of blindness restored in answer to prayer.’

I feel sure that the writer of this tract thought that he was telling the truth. And I am no less sure that a great deal of ‘spiritual healing’ is just as worthless, just as untrue, as these Grimsby miracles. Till the alleged wonders of spiritual healing, and its unpublished failures, have been all submitted to keen scrutiny, and to every severest and most searching test that can be devised in science, nobody who knows anything about pathology can take much interest in them. So I come back to the Bishop of Birmingham’s wise eirenicon.