NATURE AS HEALER

Evening Star, Issue 19775, 27 January 1928, Page 14

NATURE AS HEALER

A BENIGNANT POWER The phrase " the healing power of Nature ’ was current iu the time of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, more than 2,000 years ago. It expresses a general principle which is as old as life itself. Indeed, if what geologists toll us of the age of the world is true, long before animal life was possible on a bleak and pitiless planet the process of repair and restoration must have heed operative in Nature (writes H. Osburn Cowen. in the ‘ Argus’b Certainly without this Vis Mccliealrix Naturae human life would fc-e an unthinkable tragedy. No wound would heal and no disease would bo arrested. Not many have trodden the borderline between reason and fancy with such a. bit too step as Professor Wood Jones hi his delightful and whimsical volume d Unscientific Essays.’ In one of these lie makes excellent play with a saying oi Ambrose Paic. Although iie lived centuries betorc the discovery of amestheties a ill an!-' s<: pl JC ®> l ale still ranks as the most famoW s of anny surgeons. When the excellence or his results, at a time whim such excellence as tragically rare, was remarked upon, was wont to say: “ J dressed him; Oo(> healed him.” The relevance and scope of this saying are at once realised it wo contemplate for a moment what would happen if tho wounds caused by a surgeon did not heal. The surgeon docs not heal them. He places them in the position most favorable lo sound union; but be, 100, is only

a loolcor-ou while the inherent. ncaling power of Nature does its benign worl:. What is true of surgery is no 'ess true ot medicine. The aim of both is readjustment. In disease something physical, u cntal, or temperamental disturbs tiio adjustment bctwoon the individual ami his i nvironmenl. When, for instance, an error of vision is corrected by suitable glasses (be eye itself remains tbe same, hut its relation to outside objects is radically changed. The objective of tbe healing art. is roadjus! men I. One oflon hears it ‘aid .that surgery has advanced much more (ben medicine, bid it must bn borne in mind that the problems of medicine are much more abstruse, and its methods of attacking them are in the nature uf Ibe case less obvious and direct. The public is by ibis lime well aware of the seeming insolubility of the problem wln’cli cancer presents (o surgery. Medicine lias to lace this ami many oilier problems, such as that of rheumatoid, hardly less difficult noth medicine and surgery have faced the whole question of tuberculosis, and (lie result? of the attack on tbo medical side have been of incomparably greater service to humanity. They form the basis of the modern conception of the . essentials of personal and public health—pure air, pure water, and pure food. Medicine and surgery have developed together. They have a common aim, and the best men in both are most alive io their essential interdependence. The history of science lias surely no morn splendid chapter than I, bat of flic co-operation between Pasteur and Lister in tbe work which made possible tlie control of infection in wounds, it lias been aptly said that there arc but Iwo eras in surgery—(bat before Lister and .lhat afler. Pasteur's work bus the added ) glory (hat, by emphasising (lie significance of iho infinitely little, it also ushered in a new ora in medicine. In the last analysis what both Pasteur and Listor did was to show wherein (lie healing processes of Nature were hindered, ami how such hindrance might be counteracted or removed. _ Medicine lias much to contribute to life, but it is not at first sight just what people expect. They seek a cure; it offers healing. It is a much nobler gift, and it is certainly much more ennobling. It helps men to help themselves, and makes it easier for them to help themselves next time. 1 do not wish io press flic point, but whereas an easy cure would take something from the dignity of life, real healing adds immeasurably Io it, making man work out his own physical salvation. To hand a man a cure would leave him much as lie was before, or rather less of a man than ho was before; to enlist bis own active co-operation in his restoration Io health is, ipso facto, to leave him a better man than lie was. He is more his own man; he lias more will power, more j respect for his own body. j It would bo better both for the profes- j sum and the public if ir were frankly recognised that the essential element in healing is supplied, consciously or unconsciously, by tTie sufferer himself—consciously, as when he, diets and orders bis life according to advice; unconsciously, as when his wound heals owing to a quality inherent in himself, it is often said that Providence helps those who help themselves. Certainly medicine, the handmaid of Providence, acts strictly Io this specification. For centuries mankind has been looking for a cure for tuberculosis. Not- long ago its victims were confined to rooms from which fresh air and sunshine / were rigidly excluded. At tbo same time, every promise of a cure was seized upon ‘ with feverish eagerness, and the charlatans j of the day reaped a rich harvest by the skilful regulation, of despair. It is a tragic .'thought that, while they were looking for I a miracle, these sufferers were literally cjos- ( ing the door against the. healing which Nature was ready to supply, j Perhaps too treatment to no oilier disease : owes so little to drugs and so much to the intelligent application of such simple things as fresh air and sunshine, which arc freely available to all. Once Koch’s epoch-making discovery of the iubercle bacillus had been mndo and its history studied the whole, situation was changed as suddenly as by the waving of a magic wand. It was realised that under the old regime everything had been done lo nuke the destruction worked by tbo bacillus easier, and to weaken the resistance of (he. individual. J’o day the plan of attack is (o make conditions as unfavorable as possible for the bacillus, and to increase in every way (he resistance ot the individual. The. resulting benefit is not merely personal and particular, but it has made possible a. cleaner, saner, and more wholesome life for the whole community. When .Shakespeare wrolc— _ • Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie

Which wo ascribe to Heaven ho showed a dear conception of the healing inherent in Nature, and at tho same time ho rebuked the claims of what is called divine healing. It is the old cry for tho quick and easy cure which would eliminate tho necessily for human effort. Nothing throughout the ages has done more lo check the advance of knowledge, than the use of words and phrases for something which men do not understand and which they come to look on ns denoting (ruth. Who aro we to discriminate between tho natural and the supernatural, who do not oven know why a blade of grass grows? We but raise a smoke screen of argument about it and about. After oil the dust and heal of the controversy between special creation and evolution wo arc brought no nearer to a solution of the mastery of life. Let nr, be frank. 'Mankind still awaits a worthy working conception of the power behind the universe. Wc conceive of it as something iu our own image, capricious, partial, and even locally operative. Punitive it is, as a law of Nature, but surely newer capriciously punitive. The. study' and elucidation of simple elemental things aro more likely to bring ns a truer conception. It would seem that (ho healing power of Nature is at one with the power behind the universe. It is quiet, potent, always at. work, free to all, everywhere and at all times. It bears upon it (ho stamp of tho universal. Familiarity and lack of vision keep ns from seeing (he everyday healing of wounds as a miracle. It was so thal Lister saw it. and his palient and reverent, study of it led directly (o his groat discovery.