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Medicine and the Church.1

THE LANCET.

LONDON: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1910.

SYMPOSIA upon disputed subjects are a literary device wellknown from classical times downwards by which conveni-

ently to weld various opinions into a more or less harmonious

whole; and the papers which are collectively issued under the title Medicine and the Church " form an admirable

epitome of the opinion held by leading clerics and physicians,together with some laymen, upon a matter which has of late

years assumed a revived importance. Twelve writers have con-tributed towards the book in addition to the editor, who sup-plies an introduction, and the Bishop of WINCHESTER, who hascontributed a "foreword." Among them are the Bishop ofBLOEMFONTEIN, Sir CLIrFORD ALLBUTT, the Rev. Dr.

ROBINSON, Prebendary FAUSSET, Dr. T. B. HYSLOP, Dr.

JANE WALKER, Mr. STEPHEN PAGET, and the Hon. SYDNEY

HOLLAND, all names which constitute a guarantee of sound

thinking, and as a result we have a work of real and

practical utility.The question debated in the book is one which is as

old as medicine itself, or, to be more exact, which suppliedits own answer in the dawn of our profession. For at that daythe priest and the medicine-man were one, as they are still

among the few primitive peoples who are left on the globe,and whose ethics are known to us with any certainty. But as

time went on, not only did the office and calling of the

priest become divorced from that of the medical man, but,to speak generally, the first looked upon the discoveries of

science with unbelief or positive antagonism, while the secondin his turn took up an attitude of indifference or of enmitytowards anything to which he could not apply the tests of reason. For many centuries, too, the science of medicinewas upon a very low level, and no proper distinction wasmade between that class of disease which for want of a

better name is called functional and that in which there is

really some organic change. Hence arose cures-cures

which appeared to be against the course of nature and were,iiiscalled miraculous by those who forgot that great saying ofST. AUGUSTINE, quoted by Prebendary FAUSSET, "Por-

tentum fit non contra naturam, sed contra quam est

iiota natura." After the Reformation the Church of Englandseemed, except in her formularies, to ’forget that her

children had bodies as well as souls, while in the RomanChurch the office of Unction of the Sick became transmuted

into the unction of those who are leaving this life for thenext. Nor was the profession of medicine blameless, for

there was a tendency to treat the disease rather than the

patient, and to consider as matters of no moment affections

which, although they did not owe their origin to any

1 Medicine and the Church : A Series of Studies on the Relationshipbetween the Practice of Medicine and the Church’s Ministry to theSick. Edited by Geoffrey Rhodes. London : Kegan Paul, Trench,Trubner, and Co., Limited. 1910. Pp. 298. Price 6s. net.

gross disturbance of tissue, were nevertheless of very real

moment to the patient. In cases of this sort the quackspiritual healer finds his widest opportunity, and owing tohis vagaries the true usefulness of ’’ mental healing" hasbeen obscured. It is to throw light upon this obscurity, andto consider the field of function which belongs to both

medical man and priest in their dealing with the sick,that the papers in the bock before us have been written.

All of them are good and worthy of careful consideration

both by medical men and the clergy. If we give specialmention to those by Dr. H. W. G. MACKENZIE, Dr. T. B.

HYSLOP, Dr. JANE WALKER, the second paper by PrebendaryFAUSSET, and the contributions of the Bishop of BLOEM-FONTEIN and Dr. ROBINSON, we none the less would not havemissed willingly the two short contributions from Mr.

STEPHEN PAGET and Mr. SYDNEY HOLLAND respectively,or the admirable little essay by Mr. ELLIS ROBERTS entitled"The Church and Mental Healing," which from the pointof view of an educated man, who is presumably neither

medical man nor cleric, sums up some difficult points ina very clear manner. Taken as a whole, the various

papers set out an opinion much the same as that

of the Lambeth Report of the Committee upon" Ministries of Healing "-namely, that there is room

for both priest and physician in the sick room, and

our own opinion tallies with this. There is no medical

man who will deny the power of the mind over the body, noone who will not agree that if a patient desires to, andthinks that he will, get well, he is, ceteris paribus, in a muchbetter position for recovery. Prayer, as both Dr. JANH

WALKER and Dr. HYSLOP point out, whether as a personalhabit or as offered for the sick by another, is of great valuein securing mental stability and that quiet mind for whichthe Prayer Book contains a petition. A tactful and expe-

rienced priest may often be of the greatest assistance to amedical man, and no practitioner would, if his patientdesired to see such an one, forbid his entry to the sick

room. For the medical man knows that the ministrations

of the wise priest constitute a very different affair from

the folly or irreverence of " Christian Science."The medical profession cannot be expected to take

seriously the healings reported to the credit of Mr. JAMESM. HICKSON of the Society of Emmanuel; and to responsibleclergymen who, seduced by the desire to preserve an openmind, may too easily credit such performances we wouldcommend that warning of JEREMIAH, "I have not sentthese prophets, yet they ran." The Office for the Visitation

of the Sick, imperfect though it be and as the Lambeth Com-mittee considered it to be, together with prayer by the suffererhimself, by his friends, and above all by the collective bodyof the Church in public worship, are far more efficacious

than any ministrations by self-styled "spiritual he, Llers. "

To quote the Bishop of LONDON, " If I was ill, I would send

for the best doctor, and get my parish priest to come and

pray by my side, believing that the double work of JESUS

CHRIST is shared by two great professions. It would be bad

for either to be banished from the sick room." The spirit ofthat sentence is, on the whole, the spirit of the collected

papers contained in Medicine and the Church," and, in our

opinion, it is commendable.