DOCTORS AND CLERGY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1986, 17 February 1914, Page 5

DOCTORS AND CLERGY.

ANCIENT AND MODERN. VICTORIES OVER NATURE; AND THE PRICE. [By Dr. E. D. MackellaiU The coming of a Bishop and the Medical Congress bring the allied professions into prominence. They arc of cite family, and, like most families, have their differences. The doctors, who are apt to think the clergy too fond of dogmatising, for long have had the reputation of believing little and doubting much. The man of physic in the Canterbury Tales studied but little .on th<; Bible, and Henbane Divining, tho mediciner in the- "Fair Maid of Perth," is the typjeal narrow-minded unbeliever. And tin's is natural, for religions have their foundations in faith that cannot be demonstrated) ( while science prospers by investigating; by doubting even, the very things that seem to be facts. The training, too, of the theologian makes him hold fast that which was from the beginning, but- shuts his eves to tho view that truth, absolute in itself, but- not by revelation, must strengthen tbft believing ■by its jmany sidedness, and win the doubting' by its applicability to «very age. It is Hot a painting, beautiful on one side only, but a crystal, perfect on all sides, lighting every.-man that comes into tho world— "And he showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem,, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God; and her light was like, a stoiio most precious, even like a iasper stone, clear as crystal." ' • ' ■ Have theologians succeeded in making the Church on earth at all like this? Have they taught men to walk in this life as if their citizenship was heavenly? Have they not rather divided when they should have united, declared war whero they should have been peacemakers? And let no one say that those are faults of a past age. Is the Kikuyu controversy medieval or modern, or, in spirit, both ? Theology and medicine, once so united, now stand somewhat apart, yet there may come a brighter day and a- renewal of the old alliance, i? only theologians will realise _ that every advance of scieneeyinto tho hitherto unknown is a plea in favour of unending ■ existences and powers, real though unseen, an appealing argument for a boundless something, which we call eternity, and a persuasive. answer to the sad suggestion of a human lifo without a stint limited to a world that knows not God. , ■

And what has been the evolution of medicine? Honoured,..almost divine, in'mythology, praised, and of high repute in pagan and early- .Christian times, crushed into dull- uniformity by the mailed hand of the' feudal system-. The Church shrank from the 'shedding of Mood, left surgery to the barbers, and kept for herself the more .honourable work of the physician; .- Medicine became as orthodox as theology,.-and it was heresy to depart from the ways of patristic thereabouts.' It was better that a man should die according to tho rules of Hippocrates and Galen than recover by the dictates bf common sense.- But medicine.-shared in that gradual emancipation of tho human mind, sometimes called the Reform ition, sometimes the Renaissance, and the discoveries of tho circulation, inoculation and vaccination, Anaesthetics, and «±he.causation of disease by germs raised medicine from a tentative" empiricism to an exact science.

Tliereis a wonderful likeness between the-navigation and the medicine of today. Each, has exact methods arrived at aby laborious, observation, yet each meets with..lamentable-failures, not because their'methods are imperfect, but because-the opposing elements are uncertain.

It is possibly an exaggeration to say that the germ theory is all in-Lucre-tius,' but who can tell how much «-« owe to those courageous nieii, who, freeing themselves from the'tra-raniels of their times, foresaw, as it were, in a vision, so many of the most modern of our.discoveries,.and who can tell how many sublime souis have waged an «n----/enital war with the secrets of nature? Why did SO many beginning in*'hope end in lioth ing ?. Because scram, rittfo ■ coy fastidious lovers did not press their "mt some lost heart at tln» sight of tho dense Underwood that hides the dark and mysterious' home of Vida'r: some because — • ."Comes tho blind fury with the abhorred shears, , And slits the thin-spun life," Ami we enter into their labours. a».d-, aomotimes know it not. Many know that France Was driven from Panama by tropical disease, but how many re- ■ mombor that at the time of her defeat, a young French surgeon was beginning theso researches that made the project .possible? Franco sowed the seed of | sticcess.xbut it is not her sons that come ' again wft(i joy. and bring their sheaves with thomV" And for all these victories over nature have wg no price to pay, no'-"hor-ror breathing from the silent ground"? It is well known that somo nf the greatest discoveries in medicine have been perverted to ■ the basest uses, and. wo cannot bo blind to tlie fact that the very successes in alleviation or cvtro tend to make us introspective, neurotic, ready to sacrifice almost anything to freedom from pain, willing to wear out our constitutions in imcedsing excitement, trusting that rest euros and injurious' drugs will restore us.- While wo hurt our bodies by misdirected car© of then), arc \wo not also hurting our higher nature? -Is not so much attention to' tho seen and temporal likely tn make us less mindful of the unseen-and spiritual? It is perhaps impossible to -explain tho underlying theory of modern medicine with brevity and accuracy in ordinary, language, but a few simple.words will convey a sufficiently clear general idea, ft is a scientific application of the old "knowledge that Nature has a healiu.g'power, arid that .certain diseases prevent second attacks, or make them milder. Wo now know that tho body has a numerous liUputian garrison that rallies' at tho point of attack and consumes tho oiictny'or limits his progress, Wo know that small doses of certain diseases administered artificially prevent, or lesseii, or .eilro. the- same diseases acquired-in tho usual way. In other-words, that a.healthy body is its own best protection, and that tho best treatment of disease is not by contraries (allopathy), not by simitars (tomoeopatby), but by-.the disease itself :bv identicals (aittopnthy). • Oar bodily diseases rightly used lead to im-munity-or cure, just as in tho moral world— "Our pleasures and-ovr discontents ' Are rounds by which we may ascend.'.' —Auckland "Star."