"MIRACLE MONGERING."

Northern Advocate, 9 February 1925, Page 7

"MIRACLE MONGERING."

PREVALENT CRAZE. VIGOROUS PROTEST BY DEAN" INGE. ' In fin article in the London "Morning Post/' the Dean of St. Paul's (Dr. \V. R. Inge) engages in a vigorous protest against "the encouragement which is being given by certain bishops to the craze of miracle-mongering in the treatment of sickness," and declares that they are bringing the Church of England into contempt. It is high time (says Dean Inge) that an energetic protest was made against the encouragement which is being given by certain bishops to the craze for miracle-mongering in the treatment of sickness, which is part of a widespread recrudescence of superstition among the half-educated. They are bringing the Church of England into contempt, and doing incalculable mischief by exploiting those partially submerged beliefs and habits of thought which, civilisation has not had time to eradicate. The average man and woman still desire signs and wonders; this is the kind of evidence for re- | ligion that they value; and a priest- • hood which offers them what they want may still win a disastrous sort of success. Medical science is now fully alive to the importance of suggestion in therapeutics. It is a branch of science which has been allowed to lag far behind other modes of treatment, though it has long been'recognised that a doctor who knows how to inspire confidence in himself and his methods has a better chance of curing his patients than one who lacks this gift. Most doctors occasionally affect a cocksure manner which masks a real perplexity; it is bad for the patient to think that his adviser is in doubt what to do. But the scientific study of psychotherapeutics, with or without hypnotism, is now being eagerly pursued in all civilised countries. No doubt is felt that ultimately it will be known wliat the conditions are under which this kind of treatment is advisable; at present all admit that there are wide gaps in our knowledge. This is one reason why a certain class of apologist is so fond of the subject.

There are many religious people who instinctively take refuge in gaps, though they might have been warned by experience that, when the gaps begin to close, they will find themselves in a tight place. It is often said that, while functional diseases may often be treated advantageously by suggestion, organic diseases certainly cannot. But it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between them. Many cases are both functional and organic; and in some of the alleged cures of organic disease by psychical treatment it is probable that the functional symptoms have been ameliorated, while the organic trouble remains untouched. It is also undisputed that some organic processes, like the circulation, can be affected by the mental condition of the patient, and it is at least possible that if the vital energy can be increased through the mind, the organism may be rendered more able to cope with a microbic invasion. But whatever conclusions science may arrive at as' to the limits of psychical treatment, the medical profession has no doubt that it will be brought under the laws of natural causation. The medical psychotherapist pretends to no occult or supernatural powers. There is no hocuspocus about his methods; lie looks to further advances in psychology and psychiatry to guide him, and acknowledges no mysteries that will not in time be explained rationally. PERSISTENCE OF SUPERSTITION.

In dealing with neurosis and mental disorders, recent science has proved that mental disease is often caused by emotional disturbance, and can often detect the cause of the trouble in some half-forgotten shock, or in a failure of the mind to adapt itself to its social environment. The modern physician has studied what Freud and others have said that auto-suggestion, autognosis, and sublimation, and in this country at any rate he usually recognises the unique power of religious belief to sublimate morbid energies and give them both emotional and practical satisfaction. But while endeavouring to awaken the religious sense of his patient, he does not cease to think scientifically. He is not imitating the savage medicine-man or the mediaeval sorcerer. Very different is the method of the modern miracle-worker. His appeal is purely atavistic. The earliest branch of medicine was psychotheraphy but not recognised as such. It consisted largely of counter-charms against the black art, which were no doubt as efficacious as the sorcerer's curses. Even when drugs were administered, they were usually quite worthless, and owed such success as they obtained to their effects upon the imagination of the patient. The separation of medicine from superstition has been the hardly won triumph of quite recent times. Until I this separation was made, no progress in the healing art was possible; since j medicine won its freedom, progress j has been extremely rapid.

But the thought habits of many thousands of years are not to be extirpated in two or three generations. Tn the minds of the vulgar, the healing art is still a mystery, which is not best understood by its official practitioners. The composition of most of the quack medicines was mad' 1

] known about twenty years ago by medical authorities; but the public took no interest in the revelation, and continued to give half-a-crown for a bottle of "Physic" which cost a half- ! penny to make. Miracle-working shrines arc still exploited by the : Roman Church as in the Middle Ages, j Lourdes, a Frenchman tells us, in une j commerce, very lucrative to those who t • take part in it. Medical certificates j ' are always forthcoming in such cases; j ' and we need not assume that all the j I testimony is consciously false. It is | ' ea3y to imagine oneself cured as tn j imagine oneself ill; and mental exalta- j ' tion will often cause a cessation of j ' pain. All miraculous cures are much r the same; from the scientific point of j view it does not matter whether the j patient goes to Lourdes or to a Chris- ' ! tian Science leader, or to a thau- ! ' maturgist who practises independently. ( S Surprising results will follow in a small j 1 percentage of cases; 'but it must be re- J membered that a patient who has per- j | Slia ded himself that his disease is cured { ' is a very difficult subject for diagnosis, i lie may often completely mislead his j physician. If anyone is disposed to think that j some new occult power has been tapped ! by these healers, ho should study the history of the subject. The great

temple of Aesculapius at Epidaurus was the Lourdes of antiquity. Dittenberger has collected from the inscriptions found there a list of t'he diseases which the god had cured. They include blindness, lameness, sterility, hernia, snakebite, baldness, phthisis, paralysis, and gout. Hypnosis, the so-called "temple sleep," Was employed by the priests and sometimes it appears major operations were performed in the templd while the patient was unconscious. The royal touch, as is well known, was a cure for scrofula. The Plantagenets and Stuarts, and the Kings of France, had this useful but rather troublesome gift; Charles 11. touched over ninety thousand persons. William the Third, when pressed to try his hand, said to the patient, "God give you better health, and more sense"; and our present dynasty has never even made the experiment. But v it is interesting to observe that Vespasia:i, who was merely a successful officer raised to the purple, cured a case of paralysis by his touch, and a blind man by anointing his eyes with spittle. These miracles, says Tacitus, were amply attested, even when there was no longer any motive for lying about them.

Augustine says he knows of seventy miraculous cures; he gives as specimens cases of fistula, cancer of t'he breast, gout, paralysis, and St. Vitus' dance. Frequent miracles of the kind are reported through the Middle Ages, and the Protestants who are not 'content with Catholic evidence may quote as believers in this kind of miracle the names of Luther and John Wesley. WHAT THE CHURCHES SHOULD DO. It is a long catena of testimony; and yet the spirit, of the age is doubtless, right in rejecting nearly the whole of it. The causes of disease are now too well known for us to believe" in the sudden cure of many of the maladies named. Modern faith-healers usually disclaim the idea of fyare miracle, a purely supernatural breach of natural law, and have recourse to semi-rational-istic explanations, which are really more hopeless than the theory of a sudden intervention by omnipotence. There is no alternative between belief in miracle in its crudcst form, and reliance on scientific method, which, although. it confesses its ignorance of the limits of faith-'healing, rejects without hesitation most of the stories which have come down to us in such

profusion. The only safe attitude for the Church is to refuse to give any countenance whatever to miracle-mongering of this kind. If inexplicable cures have been made, it is for science to investigate them, and science is quite ready to institute an inquiry if there is a prima facie reason for thinking it worth while. But -only those w'ho have attempted to sift the evidence for a miraculous cure know the shuffling and prevarication with which they are met. In nine cases out of ten the evidence breaks down utterly. If the case is proven t'hen science must' revise its practice in the prognosis of the disease in question, this also it would be quite ready to do, if a rigorous investigation proved the cure to be genuine. But it is not a respectable thing for clergymen of high position to cry out that a miracle has been performed when they "have had neither legal training in weighing evidence, nor medical training in recognising diseases and t'heir cure. Fifty years ago no bishop could have been found to lower the dignity of his office in this way.