SPIRITUAL HEALING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15639, 19 June 1914, Page 6

SPIRITUAL HEALING.

The result of a four years' investigation of faith-healing and its relation to the Church has been received with considerable satisfaction alike by the clergy and members of the medical profession in England. The chief findings of the committee are, briefly:—That faith or spiritual healing, liko all treatment by suggestion, can bo expected to be permanently effective only in cases of what are called "functional" disorders, as distinct from organic ailments. Those who resort to " healers" are therefore warned that they may thereby bo postponing until too late the medical treatment which might serve to arrest organic disease. The committee deairo to see an increased importance attached to spiritual ministrations as contributory means to recovery, but they strongly deprecate the independent treatment of disease by irresponsible and unqualified persons. A membor of the British Medical Association said:'—"We all recognise the inestimable value of faith. This is an essential element of success

everywhere, but faith alone cannot set a broken limb or eradicate the deep-laid diseases which imperil life. I myself have many times been indebted to clergymen for kindly help, but their ministrations have not interfered with the processes of medical treatment, which, after all, are a revelation of Divine power." A London doctor, who dissented from the committee's encouragement of ministers' cooperation with medical men at the patients' bedside, said :— From the psychic point of view the calling in of a clergyman would offer a contra-suggestion. When hope is gono the presence of a clergyman is all for good, but the fact that the minister offers consolation when death is near suggests to the mmd death, where all the conditions need strenuously to suggest On the subject of the cure of organic disease, this doctor stated : "Though suggestion cannot cure oiganic disease, it can remove or allay the nervousness attaching to that condition— nervousness that retards recovery," Psychotherapy is practised at Liverpool hospitals and by several individual members of the medical profession in London and the provinces; in fact, a private clinic exists in London, which is reported to have made some remarkable euros. Hypnotism, as an aid to healing, is practised by medical men of high reputation in almost every great city of Europe. The experience of University College Hospital in the use of t auto-suggestion for nervous diseases certainly induces them to regard with respect the growing power of methods of psychotherapy.

AUSTRIAN ARMY AND NAVY.

A summary of the Army and Navy Estimates for the next financial year—July 1, 1914, to June 30, 1916—is given by the Vienna correspondent of the London Times. Naval expenditure stands at £7,386,083, of which nearly £2,000,000 is a first instalment of a new naval programme to be completed in five years at an estimated cost of £17,784,830. In order to provide for tho altered balance of navel power in the Mediterranean, four new Dreadnoughts, each of 24,500 tons, are to replace the three old vessels, whoso displacement ranges from 5600 to 8300 tons. These will form the second Dreadnought division of the Anstro-Hungarian Fleet. Three will probably be laid down this year, and the total cost is reckoned to exceed £13,660,000. The new building programme also includes three fast cruisers, six torpedo-gunboats, and two new gunboats for the Danube service. The joint Army Estimates amount to nearly £24,000,000, of which £1,000,000 is required for the completion of army reform, £1.250,000 for new howitzers and mortars, and, £100,000 for aviation