Medicine and the Church: Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick
Religion
Medicine and the Church: Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick
Medicine -- Religious aspects; Pastoral medicine
experience did no better than those treated by simple suggestion. He
quoted two cases of nocturnal enuresis, one of which he had failed
to cure by hypnotism, whilst the other was cured by suggestion, and
a case of blepharospasm, which had been cured by suggestion, with
light massage on the eyelids, although a similar case treated only by
suggestion had not been relieved.’ Dr. W. H. Blake described ‘a series
of cases in which he had used hypnotism with the utmost benefit.... His
most remarkable cures had been effected in a case of asthma, for which
the patient was accustomed to drench himself unavailingly with drugs,
and in a severe case of dipsomania.’
Here we have grouped together the expression of the opinions of trained
minds of responsible medical men. The differences are comparatively
slight. The agreement is remarkable. Not one of them (though in one
case as many as 4000 records are in his hands) claims to have cured
what are usually called organic conditions. The whole question is as
to the best way in which suggestion can be brought to bear on patients
whose lives are in many cases rendered miserable by persistent, but
none the less ‘functional,’ ailments.
Moreover, we observe that the result of years of patient clinical
investigation is to lead them to treat every variety of psychic
therapeutics as a form of ‘suggestion.’ In no case is there so much
as a hint that a new force, viz. ‘spiritual healing,’ has appeared,
different in kind not only from other varieties of suggestion but from
the countless cults of spiritual healing, which have flourished and
disappeared in the past or the relics of which still survive in many
continental and eastern shrines.
Now, with regard to ‘spiritual healing’ in its present manifestation
in our own country the general attitude of medical science is well
described in an article which appeared in the _British Medical Journal_
of January 9, 1909. The article begins by describing some meetings
of different societies, in some cases mutually antagonistic, but
all existing for the purpose of advancing the claims of healing by
‘spiritual’ means. It goes on to say:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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