‘The suggestion would not commend itself to a medical reader as a very happy way out of the difficulty. The naïve supposition that in cases of disease which require unusually minute and scientific investigation diagnosis was made “by a kind of instinct” or “some kind of intuition” is quite on a par with the innocent conception of the nature of diseases of the nervous system which Dr. Abbott shows elsewhere. Dr. Abbott would hesitate to allow that Jesus had a kind of instinct to guide Him safely concerning the Davidic origin of a psalm or the date of the taking of Jerusalem. Why should he imagine that he was less likely to be at fault in the presence of equally difficult problems of another kind? The assumption of an infallible capacity for discrimination, which could arrive at correct conclusions without the use of any of the methods and appliances of scientific medicine, is merely to substitute one kind of “supernaturalism” for another. A miraculous faculty of diagnosis is no easier of acceptance than a miraculous cure. A “kind of instinct” is an absurd supposition.’
Dr. Ryle then examines in detail certain of the healing miracles as related by the Evangelists. The result is to leave the intelligent reader in no doubt that in nine out of ten of the cases of ‘paralysis’ brought to Him, our Lord would have been, on the ‘neurotic’ hypothesis, no more likely to effect a cure than (to take Dr. Abbott’s example) in ‘the restoration of a lost limb.’ His clear account of the case of the man with the withered hand, which the non-medical reader will be able to follow without difficulty, is worth quoting in full.
‘In the story of the man with the withered hand it is probable that we have to do with another case of paralysis; and if so, we may assume with considerable confidence that the case was one of “infantile paralysis.” This is the affection to which at the present day nearly all the instances of “withered hand” or of “withered leg” are owing. A child who has been in good health, or has suffered perhaps from a few days of feverishness, is found to have lost power in an arm or leg. The limb hangs flaccid and motionless. The muscles are found to be wasting when the limb is examined a week or two later, and the limb to be cold. For a month or two there may be a little recovery of movement. This soon stops, and the arm or leg remains ever after more or less powerless and shrunken and cold. Normal growth is largely checked, and, in addition to the actual atrophy and arrest of development, various contractions and deformities become established as time goes on. After death the muscles are found to have become much diminished and shrunken, and throughout a certain portion of the spinal cord, corresponding with the affected limb, destructive changes are found to have occurred where the normal structure of ganglion cells and nerve fibres is replaced by the remains of the inflammatory process which has been the cause of the palsy. Such is the ordinary history of a withered hand. Here the very word “withered,” which aptly describes the condition of the limb, is the most appropriate description of the result of the process which has taken place. If such was the pathology of the case described in Mark iii. 1, it is needless to say that, although it belongs to the group of the nervous diseases, it does not belong to that class of nervous disease which admits of treatment by moral impression or emotional shock.’
If this is accepted in the case of what may truly be described as ‘nervous diseases,’ then à fortiori the improbability of the view taken by ‘progressive criticism’ is enormously enhanced when we come to consider the healing of the blind, the ‘woman with an issue of blood,’ and others where the nervous system was not primarily, if at all, affected.
The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be this. Medical science has at her command a vast accumulation of clinical material on which she is able to form a clearly reasoned judgment. There is no such thing in Medicine as a ‘chose jugée.’ No single verdict ever found but is open to revision if the evidence is satisfactory. But we do claim that it should be recognised, by all who have the interests of truth at heart, that the limits of ‘psychotherapeutics,’ ‘spiritual’ or otherwise, are, according to our present knowledge, sufficiently well defined, and that nothing has yet been brought forward to warrant anyone in making an exception in favour of any one society or method.
V. Clergy and Doctors
So much may be said on the critical side.
A few words, for many are not needed, may be added as to the positive advantages of a clear understanding between the Church and scientific Medicine, as to the spheres in which both may hope to operate in fulfilment of a genuine desire to cure or alleviate bodily disease.
(1) The clergy have an unrivalled opportunity of taking the lead in educating public opinion on the subject. In no other religious body in the world is the ministry of so high a class, not merely socially (a small matter) but intellectually, morally, and spiritually, as in the Anglican Communion. As a result, I know no body of men better able to come to sane and balanced conclusions on any subjects, the details of which are within their own experience. They touch life at many points. Their calling brings them into contact with vast numbers of people, and they usually show in their dealings with others a broad-minded tolerance and shrewd common-sense which is beyond praise. I do not hesitate to say that, if I were accused of a crime which I knew I had not committed, I should feel safer if the trial were conducted before a jury of Anglican clergymen than before men drawn from any other profession; but in this matter of ‘spiritual’ or ‘psychic’ healing they have not risen to the occasion. An article in the Church Times of February 18, 1910, lies before me. A dogmatic gentleman (or lady, perhaps—the style is essentially feminine) writes the most confident nonsense on the subject of the ‘Gift of Healing’ that ever filled two columns. Here is an extract, not by any means the most precious gem from the entire chaplet, but a fair example of the whole:
‘The gift of healing is simply a human gift . . . like the gift of music or any other gift, and also, like music, present in some people more than in others, though probably present in some degree in nearly everybody. . . . The gift transcends all knowledge, it cures diseases considered incurable. Consumption, cancer, blindness, deafness, cripples (sic), &c., this is within our practical experience to-day, so that it stands to reason that the art of curing by medicine will gradually disappear as the gift of healing grows and develops. Not so the scientific knowledge of the doctors, which will be used more and more where it ought to be used, and that is in the prevention of disease.’