Probably we shall not be wrong in regarding this procedure as the origin of that relic cult which was destined to attain such astonishing dimensions in medical practise.
The mode of treatment by means of prayer was, perhaps, intimately connected with the idea that bodily ailments were divinely ordained to make the wrath of God distinctly perceptible by man. This conception of pathological processes was a very ancient one. We meet with it among the Egyptians, and we read in the book of Exodus that God visited upon Pharaoh and his people various bodily afflictions, such as pestilence, black smallpox, death, as in the case of the first-born. Afterward Christianity adopted this view of sickness as providential, and the belief assumed very peculiar forms and dimensions in the middle ages. In those times any disease occurring epidemically was actually considered to be an act of retribution on the part of the divine being, a scourge with which God punished sinful Christians. Thus, for instance, syphilis, which originated in Naples in 1495, during the struggle between the reigning house of Aragon and the French, was instantly declared to be the chastisement of God. The emperor Maximilian declares, in an edict issued August 7, 1495, at Worms: “Quod novus ille et gravissimus hominum morbus nostris diebus exortus, quem vulgo malum Francicum vocant, post hominum memoriam inauditus sæpe grassetur, quæ nos justissimæ Dei iræ merita debent admonere” (Gregorovius VII., 386, foot-note 1).
But it is very astonishing to observe the causes which aroused the wrath of God so mightily that countless numbers of men were swept away. Thus, for instance, the pious Bishop of Zeeland, Peter Paladius, assures us that miliary fever, that terrible disease which devastated Europe five times from 1486 to 1551, was sent by God, who was angry at the excessive passion for finery which prevailed at that time. Medical science, as founded on theism, assumed menacing forms, where, in the middle ages, it associated itself with magic, but as we shall more exhaustively enlarge upon this point in Chapter IV. we need merely refer here to that part of our work.
It is indeed surprising that the above-mentioned manifestations all occurred in periods in which medicine had already acknowledged the physico-mechanical interpretation of all organic processes; but the strangeness of this fact is enhanced by the consideration that, even in recent times, and even at the present moment, there have been, and are, individuals who not only preach the doctrine that medicine is bound to be subordinate to Christian faith, but also find adherents to their dogmas, and find them in surprising numbers. Recently we have learned from two exceedingly instructive examples to what extremes the sentiment of fanatical religion may lead men so soon as they shake off the steadying influence of physico-mechanical ideas in their theory of life. Then Theocracy strives for an exclusive ascendancy in the domain of medicine, as is distinctly shown by the position taken by Mrs. Eddy, with her “Christian Science,” and Rev. John Alexander Dowie, with his “Christian Catholic Church of Zion.”
If we first of all examine the system of Mrs. Eddy, we find it an absurd farrago of undigested philosophical odds and ends, illogical medical aphorisms, and shallow investigation, which reaches its pitch of folly in the belief that disease has no real foundation in the material tissues of the body, but should be explained as arising exclusively from certain conditions of the mind. In accordance with this conception, which has been borrowed from a natural philosophy long since relegated to oblivion, the services both of physician and physic are to be rejected, and the treatment of the sick is to be carried on in such a manner that the patient, under supervision of an individual expert in such affairs, is merely to fix his mind on the spiritual, or divine, principle inherent in himself.
We are by no means astonished that a person to whom the laws of thought are entirely unfamiliar, and who is not very much burdened with knowledge of any other kind, should advance such confused and preposterous theories as those of Mrs. Eddy. History teaches us that human beings have arisen at all periods, in all ranks of life, and in cold blood have given currency to the wildest of theories. But the most interesting point is that at this day when, as we might believe, the advances in physical science have enlightened to some extent even the most unintellectual, Mrs. Eddy is able to find adherents, especially among the best classes of society, and to find them in such numbers that the authorities have been compelled to interfere in repressing the practises of this medical superstition. I purposely say interesting, and not “astonishing” or “wonderful,” because the historian, whatever domain he undertakes to investigate, will always discover that stupidity has at all times been a power superior to all the influences of culture and learning. Mrs. Eddy, with her Christian Science, proves to us that even in this era of scientific enlightenment, this truth remains incontrovertible.
Rev. John Alexander Dowie, with his Christian Catholic Church of Zion, must be judged from an entirely different view-point than Mrs. Eddy. It is true, this latter-day saint arrives at exactly the same end as Mrs. Eddy—namely, at the absolute rejection of professional treatment, medical as well as surgical. But he arrives at this theory, which so closely concerns both his own health and that of his adherents, by an entirely different way from that taken by the Eddy woman. An unquestioning belief, which in its naïveté is almost touching, leads him to hold that all utterances of the Old as well as of the New Testament are direct revelations of God. The further consequence of this constancy of faith is the desire to believe and to follow everything that is contained in the Bible, to the widest extent and with the closest adherence to the wording of the book. And as the book of Exodus, xv : 26, states, “I am the Lord that healeth thee,” and in the Epistle to James, v : 14-16, prayer is recommended as the best remedy in diseases, Dowie concludes that prayer must be resorted to as the sole means of treating and curing all forms of disease. Prayer is declared by him to be much more efficacious, in surgical cases, than the skill of the most experienced operator.
Dowie, therefore, occupies exactly the same standpoint as the Christians of the first centuries after Christ, who also believed that prayer would render the best assistance in all ailments of the body. Twenty centuries, therefore, with all their immense advance in the training of thought and in the recognition of nature, have not been able to rid humanity of the conception that the omnipotence of God, among many other manifestations, is to busy itself in the daily regulation of the human body with all its numerous functions. Wherever this conception obtains a firm foothold superstition, with its acts of miraculous healing, never fails to follow. Accordingly, all historic periods of our cultural development, in which the theocratic belief has been on the ascendant, are characterized by an excessive development of medical superstition.