Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 6 November 1913, Page 21

Current Topics

End of Modernist Reviews Another Modernist paper in Italy—the last solitary organ of the cult in Romehas. just given up the ghost. ' The last issue of La Cultura Contemporanea,' says the Rome correspondent of the London Guardian, was issued to subscribers this month (August). In a farewell note the editor says that there has never been sufficient support among subscribers or buyers, and that the review has owed its existence to the special contributions of friends. Five years ago it supplanted Nova et Vetera, upon which it greatly improved both in size and matter. These two definitely Modernist reviews were preceded by 11 Rinnovamento.' * 11 Rinnovamento not only preceded the two papers mentioned; it also predeceased them. It was started in Milan in 1906, and ceased publication towards the end of 1909. The paper, which enjoyed considerable repute, especially in certain Anglican quarters, came into existence with a great flourish of trumpets and with a very ambitious programme. Under the guidance of Loisy, Tyrrell, Sabatier, etc., it was to transform the thought of Christendom and free the Church from the bondage in which it was held by old and ignorant traditions. Three short years passed. The Church was, if possible, stronger and surer and firmer than ever in allegiance to the ancient- faith and II Rinnovamento was dead. __ If Pius X. had done nothing else but to issue his . crushing. Encyclical against Modernism he would by that title alone have deserved to rank as a truly great Pontiff. Some Queensland Evidence Our friends of the Bible-in-Schools League are always telling us of the beautiful harmony and ballbearing smoothness with which the heaven-sent ' Australian ' system works wherever it has been tried. A community, we are told, has only to have experience of the system to fall immediately in love with it; and its introduction neither causes nor leaves behind it the slightest trace of party or sectarian feeling. In Tasmania, according to these veracious advocates, it 'is accepted by all as a happy solution of the problem '; in New South Wales it works absolutely ' without friction,' or, as one New Zealand advocate elegantly put it, ' frictionlessly'; while in Queensland, we are assured, there has not been a single voice of protest or dissent since its introduction three years ago, and those who originally opposed it are rapidly being converted into warm admirers and friends. Unfortunately for these pretty stories, and for the reputation of their authors, facts are continually coming to light which show how very far these roseate pictures are from being a true account of the position, and how little reliance can be placed on the one-sided, partisan,, and highly-colored ' evidence ' paraded by the League. , The latest illustration of the ' f rictionless' working of the 'Australian' system comes from Queensland, and is furnished by the leading columns of a secular daily, the Brisbane Telegraph. This evidence is particularly significant as representing no mere theoretic or academic attitude but as expressing a protest of an unmistakably practical kind. * 'The department of Public Instruction,' says the Telegraph, is being worried to provide new and up-to-date school buildings in places in which existing buildings, by reason of old age, have become worn out, and unsuitable for further use. In this, the department is face to face with a problem far more complex and difficult than at first blush may appear. The majority, if not all of the school buildings that have become effete, were erected under the system whereby parents contributed towards the-buildings. That was in the days when our State system of education was absolutely free, compulsory, and secular. It still retains its free and compulsory character, but its secu-

larly has passed away. For since the inauguration of sectarian teaching in our State 'j schools/' : parents' who strongly object to such teaching have.either taken their children from State schools, and have sent them to denominational schools, or they insist oh their children's withdrawal from any sectarian influence during the school'day. Most willingly, before this sectarian monster intruded its hydra head into our State schools, parents, irrespective' of their particular creed, gladly paid • a contribution towards the erection of a State school. And in this way the department has been helped to an incalculable extent in 'spreading its ramifications throughout . the length and breadth of the land. But, unfortunately, that help now is not forthcoming. Parents now refuse to give anything towards the erection of new schools, or towards the renewal of old schools, simply because they emphatically protest, and their refusal to contribute is the practical form of their protest, against the existence of sectarianism as an integral part of our State educational system. Those parents who, in the first place, contributed towards the erection of a State school feel that the Government broke faith with them, in so far as they gave their contributions on the statutory proviso that education was to be absolutely secular. Why should they now give any further contribution towards the renewal of wornout school buildings, seeing that they have been unfairly treated, and also that with the unsecularising of the system they cannot any longer send their children to a State school The department, therefore, has to face the position of being without the moral or financial support of that large section of parents who object to the introduction of sectarianism into our State schools. This consequence was confidently predicted at the time when sectaries' were squeezing the Government in regard to that'sectarian referendum. Presently, as demands for new schools to replace old ones become more insistent, and the department has to face the position without hope of support from a very large section of parents, the position will become acute. And the more acute it becomes the better will it be, for it will accelerate what inevitably sooner or later must happen; that is, the expulsion, once and for all, from the sphere of State education of anything and everything savouring of sectarianism. And such expulsion is a consummation devoutly to be wished.' And a Voice from N.S. Wales Another recommendation of the ' Australian' system which has been somewhat effusively urged upon the New Zealand public by Canon Garland is that it kills the agitation for and destroys the possibility of recognition of the Catholic schools. As the League pledge card insinuatingly puts it: ' This system gives such satisfaction to the vast majority that the National System of Education cannot be disturbed.' And while Canon Garland is holding out this transparent bait for the bigots in this country, his own co-religionists in New South Wales, in synod assembled, are saying the very opposite. At the Anglican Synod of the Diocese of Sydney held in the first week of October, the Rev. IT. G. J. Howe, in moving a resolution on the subject of religious instruction in the public schools, is reported as saying: ' He did not often agree with the Roman Catholics, but thought that they should be compensated for relieving the State of the work of instruction in their schools.' Another member of the —Mr. M. Willisspeaking on the same question said that ' the day was coming when the State would have to recognise the denominational schools.' * ' ■ The resolution proposed by the Rev. Mr. Howe is significant as showing the absolute truth of the statement that has been so often made in this controversy to the effect that the ministers have, to a notable extent, failed to take advantage of the opportunities provided for them by the New South Wales Act. The resolution was in these terms: ' That this Synod recognises the great importance and urgency of the work of giving special religious instruction in public e schools, and urges upon clergy and Church people generally the

necessity of providing adequate means to enable the committee to more efficiently avail itself of the privileges afforded by.the Public Instruction Act.' Speaking to this motion Canon Goddard said that ' if the people of New South Wales had known that it was only possible for ministers to visit the schools once a week, and if they had known how inefficiently the work would be done, the passage of the Bill would be seriously imperilled.' Our quotations are taken from the report appearing in the Sydney Freeman's Journal of October The Operation Question We have the most enthusiastic admiration for the ability and skill with which the members of the medical profession carry out the duties of their important calling, and for the high principle and sense of responsibility which the great body of practitioners exhibit in their work. We in New Zealand are particularly well served in this respect; and we believe that the universal verdicc of those who come into close contact with the profession in this country would be that both as men and as medicos our New Zealand doctors are entitled to the very highest respect. All the same it cannot be questioned that when Dean Darby, in a recent address, protested that the operation and knife me;hod of cure was being overdone, and that women, in particular, were serious sufferers by 'the sort of treatment now in vogue, he uttered a sentiment which would win ready and emphatic endorsement from the vast majority both of men and women in the community. This is the day, par excellence, of the surgeon specialist and the specialist like everybody else is human. He is naturally more or less of an enthusiast in regard to his specialty; and like every good workman is in danger of getting to take a pride in the number of specimens of his handiwork which he is able to turn out. Moreover, as a rule, he receives a very high fee for his work. Under these circumstances what chance has the patient, whose case is submitted to the eminent specialist for decision as to whether an operation is desirable or not, of getting a 'square deal and an absolutely disinterested judgment? We do not think that the money question is a dominant or even a material factor in the situation. But we do think that even a high-minded surgeon is liable to be swayed by what we may call professional enthusiasm ; and we can believe that there was a touch of truth as well as humor in the story of the citizen who had been duly opened up on the operating-table, and who, being afterwards asked by a friend what the operation was for, replied ' The doctors called it appendicitis; but I think myself it was only a case of professional curiosity.' * The question raised by Dean Darby is discussed briefly, but with no little directness, by Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox in an article entitled 'Surgical Hysteria,' in Nash's Magazine for September. For Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox as a 'poet'"we have scant respect. _ Her 'poetry,' full of vapid sentimentality, is of the kind that can be made to order, and turned out by the yard. But Mrs. Wilcox speaking on the subject of the physical ailments and sufferings of women is surely on more solid ground, and must be supposed to have some sort of personal knowledge of the facts. She recognises, as every intelligent person must, the splendid triumphs and immensely beneficent work of modern surgery. That surgery performs miracles of good, that it saves life, relieves permanent anguish by temporary pain, that it is a blessing to the human race, is known and appreciated by the writer of this article. But it is also known that men and women rush too blindly into the hands of the surgeon, that they believe implicitly what he says, that they do not sufficiently investigate other methods of being cured, and that they permit themselves to be hacked, & and unsexed, and deprived of natural organs, when they might keep them and obtain perfect vigor, if they would wait and look into saner, safer, and less expensive systems of cure.' Here is her specific indictment: In absolute calmness and with no rancor or ill-will, I here do

arraign the surgeons for needlessly removing the appendix in more than half the cases presented to them; and for needlessly rendering women barren by major operations in more than two-thirds of the cases presented to them, besides depleting the vital forces and injuring the health of women in many ways by serious operations where simpler and more natural methods would have effected a' cure.' • ; '""- * : ■ ■ - :;..;; In support of both counts of her indictment she quotes a number of cases which have come under her own observation. We pass by' the appendicitis cases—all male subjects,—and confine our citations to the cases of women's troubles, with which Mrs. Wilcox may be supposed to be more familiar. We take the cases in "the order, given by the writer, (a) ' The woman with whose life I have been the most closely associated since early childhood suffered a slight discomfort and felt some pain which had its cause in child-birth, years previous. The head of a prominent hospital, after a few days of treating the case, calmly stated that the knife should be 'used: ''Do you mean to say," asked the horrified woman, ' that you would mutilate me in this terrible manner with no more sign of any serious malady than I display?" Then the doctor answered, My dear madam, we are operating upon women every day who have no more visible evidence than you of the malady. It is really a very simple matter, not one to be dreaded at all."' The woman refused to undergo the operation, and Mrs. Wilcox "continues the story: 'That was three years ago. The. woman is in the "best of health and vigor to-day. Consulting an eminent physician a year after the statement made to her by the hospital specialist, she was told that not one vestige existed of the malignant malady intimated, a malady which would have ended her life in a year's time at the raost if it had existed at all.' (b) 'The wife of a reputable physician and surgeon was in much distress. No ordinary remedies relieved her, and according to the.custom of the profession, other physicians were called in. The head of a well-known hospital declared the woman to be suffering from an infrequent and serious malady which can be relieved only by the knife. The husband doubted, but, the consulting physician agreeing, the woman was taken to the hospital. Some symptoms which she developed while preparing for the operation caused her husband to beg a delay of twenty-four hours. He agreed to take all blame for any serious consequences resulting from the delay. Then he set himself to work to clear the system of his wife of all poisonous gases and excretions. In twenty-four hours she left the hospital free from pain, and attended the theatre with her husband the following evening. ten years ago, and the lady is in good health now.' (c) 'Two women met in a surgeon's room ten years ago, both afflicted with the same common malady —painful growth in the breast. Both were urged to be operated upon at once. One consented and had her breast removed. The growth came on the other side, and that was also removed, and the woman died in less than two years from the time of the first cutting, and after months of anguish. The second woman went directly from the surgeon's office to an X-ray specialist —a regular physician of the old school who had grown with the times. She was cured of every vestige of trouble at the expiration of six months. A year ago a small lump again appeared. "Ah—ha," cried the devotees of the butcher system, " you see the surgeon was right and you are not cured after all. Better have been operated on at first." "Why so?" asked \the woman. "I have had ten delightful years of health. My friend died eight years ago after two years of anguish, and now I am going to-be cured again." She is free from every symptom of breast trouble to-day, after two months' treatment.' (d) 'A young girl, single, under twenty, was told by a prominent surgeon' that she must submit to ovariotomy at once, as a lump as large as a billiard ball had developed in the right groin. From sheer distraction she was driven to consult a man opposed to cutting in these cases, and he simply found a swollen appendix, and with heat, electricity, violet

light, etc., he cured her in a very few treatments, and the lump, pain, and tenderness entirely disappeared within two weeks.’ ■

Mrs. Wilcox comes forward with a definite proposal on the matter. ‘ Any physician who is ready to make a positive statement that an operation is the only escape from death for a patient ought to be willing to put that statement into writing. No man or woman should submit to the knife if the physician refuses to do this. Let us present a Bill to Parliament compelling physicians to put their professional statements into writing. Those who jeopardise life should be ready to risk their professional reputation. The law should protect us from the regulars as well as from the charlatans.’ The article concludes: ‘Every case cited in this article is known to be true, and the names and addresses, with a score more, can be given to those who desire further proof/ Needless to say, we do not put forward Mrs. Wilcox’s ‘ shocking examples ’ as necessarily or indisputably true ; but we quote the article as indicating an interesting point of view, and one that is certainly worth consideration.