CHAPTER VII
RELIGION AND MEDICINE
Now, when physiologists study the living brain of an ape, they have no grounds for supposing that they are dealing with a dual structure. The brain is not a tenement inhabited by a spirit or soul. The spirit or soul is but a name for the manifestations of the living brain. The leading neurologists of the world are agreed that the same is true of the human brain. It was only when they abandoned the dual conception—an inheritance from the dark ages of medicine—that they began to understand the disorders of man's mind and how to treat them.
Modern medicine thus strikes at the very root of Christian doctrine. For, if man is truly mortal, if death ends all, if the human soul is but the manifestation of the living brain, as light and heat are the manifestations of a glowing bar of steel, then there can be no resurrection of the dead. Man has the seeds of immortality in him, but the gift is for the race, not for the individual.
Sir Arthur Keith.
Medicine and religion have been closely associated from the most pristine time. Primitive medicine had its origin in conjunction with the most primitive of religious conceptions, namely, animism; an illusion that made primitive man recognize in all things, and everywhere, spirits such as his supposed spirit; a belief that the world swarms with invisible spirits which are the cause of disease and death. And thus primitive medicine is inseparable from primitive modes of religious belief. All these phenomena which we consider today natural—the rustling of leaves in a forest, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning, winds, clouds, storms, and earthquakes—were to primitive man the outward and visible signs of angry gods, demons, and spirits. Similar spirits caused disease and death, and these evil spirits that produced disease and death were to be placated and cajoled by man, just as he did his other deities, by magic, by burnt offerings, and sacrifice.
The first holy man, the first priest, was the "shaman," and it was his duty not only to placate and cajole the spirits that were thought to control the physical well-being of the individual members of the tribe; but it was his duty also, by the exercise of his magic, to alleviate and cure illness by exorcism. The "shaman" was therefore the first medicine man, the first witch doctor, the first physician. He relied chiefly upon psychotherapy as does the modern witch doctor of Christian Science.
Medicine could not begin to be medicine until it was disassociated from magic, religion, and theology. This struggle has been going on from the time of the "shaman" to the present moment. Primitive medicine stands midway between magic and religion, as an attempt to safeguard health by control of so-called supernatural processes, and the warding off of evil influences by appeal to the gods.