It is a great pity that the work of the cleric and the work of the doctor should ever clash; for they are ordained (the Prayer-book again) for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other. Only, if they are to be friends in ministering to the sick and the dying, they must be friends always. If, in social life, they do not get on well together, they will not work together well in the sick-room. If the doctor makes stupid jokes against religion, and the cleric doses his parishioners with quack medicines; if the doctor is dull to the wonders of faith, and the cleric is dull to the wonders of science: if neither has the grace to recognise and honour and openly praise the good works of the other—how shall they adjust themselves, in the presence of impending death, who thus waste the opportunities of daily life?
THE RELATION OF PRIEST AND DOCTOR TO PATIENT
BY
JANE WALKER, M.D.
PHYSICIAN, NEW HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN
THE RELATION OF PRIEST AND DOCTOR TO PATIENT
By Jane Walker, M.D.
In considering the subject of Religion and Medicine, we shall be helped by looking back to the beginnings of things, when people first realised that illnesses existed, and that certain of them were curable. They knew nothing of internal anatomy or physiology, nothing of the origin and treatment of disease, nothing of its infectious, communicable character. The treatment, or, at any rate, the healing of disease, must have been by means of what seemed to be mental influences in those early ages. Why, our very word ‘Influenza,’ revived within comparatively recent years, shows how vaguely and imperfectly was understood a disease which now we recognise as having a definite train of symptoms, but of which we still know so little that we speak of it merely as an influence.
The idea of mental influence in disease was first scientifically formulated about twenty-five years ago, and was provided with one of those queer names which we now use more or less glibly, with a sort of comforting feeling that we understand the subject, when we have successfully mastered the spelling and pronunciation—the scientific name psychotherapeutics, or, in plain English, mind cure. These investigations were undertaken in France, to start with, at Nancy University, by Liébault, who published, in 1866, ‘Treatment by Suggestion,’ and by Bernheim, and simultaneously in Paris by Charcot, and they were primarily to observe sundry methods of treatment used at that time in an unscientific manner, such as animal magnetism, mesmerism, hypnotism, &c. Liébault’s book, which was taken little notice of at the time, gave a full description of the methods he pursued, which more or less coincide with those followed by doctors who practise Treatment by Suggestion and Hypnotism at the present day. He lived a retired life, and practised entirely amongst the poor, who were devoted to him, but, at the same time, regarded him as an amiable enthusiast. Liébault finally retired on a very small competency, not acquired from his practice, which was altogether unremunerative.
As a result of this gathering up of all these so-called occult methods of treatment into the more or less exact science of Psychotherapeutics, have come into prominence many cults—or sects, shall we call them?—such as Mental Healing, Faith Cures, Peculiar People, Metaphysical Healing, Christian Science, each of which is overlaid with doctrines of a more or less dubious kind. The growth of these various bodies of late years has been extraordinarily rapid: to mention two of them only, Christian Science and New Thought are now enthusiastically practised and believed in by many thousands of people, both here and in America, and hundreds of churches have been provided and erected in their names.
It must not be lost sight of that Christian Science, as well as New Thought, which has been described by Mr. Dresser, one of its chief exponents, as being ‘a common-sense, rational phase of the Mental Healing Doctrine,’ ‘are dealing with genuine facts in the sphere of Mental Therapeutics’; but these facts are entirely independent of the theories by which either school attempts to explain them.
The spread of Christian Science was viewed with considerable alarm by many influential members and dignitaries of our own Church, and this feeling was brought to a head at the Pan-Anglican Congress in 1908, when a large meeting on the subject was held at the Albert Hall, which is fully reported in the handbook of the Pan-Anglican Congress.