Essays in medical sociology, Volume 2 (of 2)Blackwell, Elizabeth
Science
Essays in medical sociology, Volume 2 (of 2)
Blackwell, Elizabeth
Prostitution; Sexual ethics; Social medicine
Then the recognition of Right and Wrong in human action becomes clear,
and the supremacy of the Moral Law inevitable.
It is indispensable to refer to these deeper principles of existence
in considering their varied application. They give force to those
condensed maxims of practical wisdom which, transmitted to us from the
experience of our forefathers, are guides for our present daily life.
‘Never do evil that good may come’ is a proverb so familiar to us
in various forms that we fail to see the profound wisdom which it
expresses.
It is a confession of that intellectual limitation which cannot foresee
complicated results; it is an acceptance of that inflowing light of
conscience (however dim) by which everyone must honestly walk; it is
the subjection of the narrow, self-centred Will to the Universal Life
by which the individual becomes a free co-worker with the Divine.
Physiology rightly studied in the light of this fundamental
principle--incarnation--vindicates the supremacy of the Moral Law,
which is the Law of Unity, or transfiguration of the Self. It gives the
perception of Right and Wrong. The Law of the Universal, reverently
and intelligently studied, will guide all practical action; it will
show us how to build a hospital, plan a medical school, organize an
institute of preventive medicine, legislate for a community, or guide
the individual life.
The Law of Unity relegates bacteriology to its proper place as a branch
of pathology, and proves that truth cannot be gained by searching
into the quivering organs of tortured animals. It shows us also that
individual health cannot be secured by building a Chinese wall around
one’s self. We cannot stop the revolution of the earth in an atmosphere
which may bring bacilli from inundated China, from starved Russia, from
leprous India, or from the slums of the West.
We must work gradually towards the realization of our
ideal--Health--and work in many directions and on many lines. Advancing
sanitation will place our future hospitals in country neighbourhoods,
with only temporary receiving houses and dispensaries in large towns.
‘The oldest hospitals were the temples of Esculapius, where Divine
assistance was sought.’ To these Asclepeia, always erected on healthy
sites, hard-by fresh springs and surrounded by shady groves, the sick
and maimed resorted to seek the aid of the ‘god of Health.’ To this
wisdom of the ancients we must certainly return when the present
tendency to subordinate the welfare of the sick to the convenience of
students be checked.
The most urgent need which now exists in our profession is the
establishment of an Institute of Preventive Medicine guided by the
Moral Law. Such an Institute will recognise that mind and matter meet
in the fact called Life, will reverently study all the conditions
and laws of healthy life, and not be diverted from this great aim by
curious investigations into artificially propagated disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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