FAITH HEALING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9917, 4 August 1910, Page 2

FAITH HEALING.

CHARGE OF MANSLAUGHTER. FATHER COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received August 4, 9 a.m.) SYDNEY. August 4. Arthur Lloyd lias been, committed for trial oil a charge of the manslaughter of his son, agecl five, who died from diphtheria. The evidence at the inquest showed that the father, who believed. in. faith healing, refused to allow a doctor's treatment. Although he knew that his son. was Buffering from diphtheria, lie relied on prayer.

SOME MEDICAL GIUTICISM. The subject of faith healing is of great interest to the man in. the street, though the. relations between mind and body arc of a nature so abstruse that only those who have given the subject tho prolmmdest study can speak with authority upon it. In order to present a collection! of weighty opinions., the editor of' the " British Medical Journal " invited some of those who can speak with tlio highest authority on tho subject to state the results of their observations and experience. As a result our contemporary fckici. week contains a number of special articles on fait-h-healing. Among tho contributors are Sir Clifford Allbutt, K.C.8., Regius Professor of 'Physic in the University of Cambridge; Sir .Henry Morris, Bart., expresident, and Mr Henry T. Butlin, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; and Dr Osier, Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. Sir Clifford Allbutt reviews the history of faith, healing from, antiquity to the present day, and h© > well says that probably no limb, no vascus is 150 l'ar a vessel of dishonour ias to lie wholly outside the renewals of the spirit' On this conviction tho hopes and method of faith healing depend. He draws a clear line of demarcation between the function of the physician and that of the clergyman, but lie shows that they should not bo enemies but allies. In sickness the mind is always more or elss diseased, as well as the- body, and heroin tlio patient cannot minister to liimeelf, as ho is sunk in apathy or despondency. Here the spiritual healer may most usefully co-operate with the doctor. Sir Henry 'Morris discusses the " miracles " of Lourdes and tho " cures " of Christian Science in a large and philosophic spirit. While rejecting tho miraculous character of the cures at Lourdes, he throws no doubt 011 the good faith of the medical men to whom the inquiry into the genuineness of the cures is entrusted, but 110 holds that there is nothing in these. " euros " that cannot bo matched bv the operation of natural causes, and lie brings forward in illustration some striking cases of the immediate and spontaneous cure of diseases which bad brought the patient to death's door. It may be pointed out that it is the instantaneous character of tlie- cure which is claimed as the special feature of the Lourdes miracles.

While not gentle in his handling of Lourdes, Sir Henry Morris reserved the sharpest arrows of his criticism for Christian Science. After referring to the total want of trustworthy and independent evidence in Mrs Eddy's own cases of reputed cures, lie says that, compared with the Lourdes craze, Christian Science is as a snare and a pitfall to a refuse and a haven of security. No deprivation of medical treatment, or of physical aids to comfort ol - relief, is roquired by the former; 110 excuse of failure is sought in extraneous trifles to pacify or imposo upon the .pilgrisis to the grotto." Though _ speaking from the rationalist standpoint throughout, Sir Henry Morris believes iri the power of faith, which, he says, is much—perhaps it is really everything to man. ' But he takes care to add that happily it was given to him ages before Christian Science was dreamed of. ,

Mr Butlin's paper, is of special interest. as 'he has seen more of cancer than most surgeons, and such oases form, the best test of the reality of cures supposed to be wrought by faith. He, too, believes in the good faith of the official reporters of the Lourdes miracles, but he shows how fallacious experience is in such matters. Ho gives instances of the disappearance of tumours in persons who have not been treated by laiin, but who have been condemned to death by the most capable surgeons. Both these and the similar cases which are claimed as faith cures ho presumes to be inflammatory, not malignant. But they .are solid masse?, and may bo classed as conditions of organic disease. He is prepared to go a step further, and to suggest that now and again a case of true organic disease may perhaps be cured by faith. It is well known that cancer sometimes gets well spontaneously, or the disease may, without obvious cause, be arrested for a longer or shorter period of time. If such things should hapoen, as they well may, in a patient undergoing any system of faith cure, tho ease would naturally and honestly !>(■• claimed as a miracle. He has seen caucor cured not only by faith but by some of tho many remedies which at one time or another during the last thirty-five years have been put .forward as remedies for the disease. In sonic cases. the diagnosis was at fault, but in others scientific tests left no room for doubt. The curious thing, however, is that the remedy seemed to lose its charm in tho hands of others, and even in those of the person after one success. Mr Butiiu asks whether the remedy did not chance to produce flint change in tho body of the patient tho nature of which our cancer investigators are trying to discover, which'rendered it capable of resorbing its cancer, and made it immune to another attack of the same variety, of cancer. For the present, lie says, the question must remain unanswered.

The lesson of Professor Osier's paper is contained in tho concluding words, in' which fie urges that the attitude of tho physician should not be hostile to faith healing. He has seen much of the curative effects of faith made operative either by tho personality of the physician or •bv the attractions of a new gospel, which offered to people a now way of life, "a new Epicureanism which promises to freo tho soul (and body) from fear, care and. unrest." The " miracles of Christian Science, he says, lie exclusively in the realm' of functional disorders. He has not met with any case permanently cured. Ho knows of reputed euros of locomotor ataxia, but, he add significantly, "two of these patients still take opium for the lightning pains."