Medicine and the Church
Various Authors
9781465659569
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In the Middle Ages practically the only homes of learning were the monasteries. Here all the knowledge of the time was taught and all the studies carried on, so that under the same roof the theologian, the chemist, the artist, and the artificer sat side by side, and consequently each drew from and modified the study and practice of the other. In England, at least, the dissolution of the monasteries changed this order, and though the brilliancy of the Renaissance for a time obscured the loss to society in general, in the backwater of the eighteenth century both religion and medicine drifted into distinct circumscribed professions. The dawn of the nineteenth century saw an enormous revival of interest and study in both directions, but the newfound energy with which the two spheres of learning were pushed forward, proved in the end inimical to the highest interests of the community, for religion and medicine found themselves carried farther and farther apart. Before the stress of life became as severe as it is to-day, most common complaints could be overcome by rest and ordinary treatment. But under modern conditions of extreme complexity healing can no longer be conducted on such simple lines, and as time has gone on the effects of this divorce of medicine and religion have made themselves felt. In correspondence with a more highly organised state of society, man has become a more highly organised being. He has developed faculties in excess of the man of, say, fifty years ago, and the exercise of these faculties, that depend for their operation on the nervous system, entails a strain on that system to which it was not exposed half a century back. The more elaborate the machinery the more ways in which it may get out of order. Man to-day is prone to a dozen nervous complaints whose existence our forefathers were happily able to ignore. Owing to climatic and other conditions that need not be discussed here, these nervous disorders first forced themselves on public attention in the United States of America. The overworked business or professional man has no time in the rushing life of the great growing cities of America for rest. Carried off his feet by the tide of prosperity, he becomes the slave of his inventions instead of being their master. His sense of proportion becomes atrophied and he fails to maintain a correct balance between thought and action. A purely materialistic medicine that ignores thoughts and feelings as being outside the scope of diagnosis is powerless to prescribe for such a case. And it is small matter for astonishment that patients of this description have been drifting into the hands of Christian Science and kindred cults in their search for relief. These systems of philosophy or religion (if such they can be called) lack, however, that element of completeness without which no guide of human conduct can maintain its hold. And as it becomes realised that these irresponsible and often mercenary societies are propagating views diametrically opposed to the common-sense conceptions of the patients, their power will be broken and the cures cease. Meantime Christian Science undoubtedly does overcome some cases of nervous trouble, but these in no sense outweigh the mischief done by its followers in denying the sick medical care. We must clear the ground before we can commence building, and it may be well to examine briefly the ‘faith and works’ of Christian Science before proceeding to discuss the relationship between Medicine and the Church.
