Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/126

 or mutually destructive factors for good or ill respectively.

If religious observances, under determined conditions, are found to be useful and essential for the sane in mind and body, they are also likely to be so, under conditions otherwise determined and arranged, for the insane. Many insane patients are totally incapable of attending any religious function. Some must be prohibited; others may be encouraged. As an asylum physician the writer may state that a generic case of religious excitement or enthusiasm may most advisedly even be restrained from religious functions until at least the acute symptoms have subsided. There can be little doubt that no religious officer would be likely to succeed in accomplishing much for patients without an accurate knowledge of insanity and the mental experiences of those whom he seeks to influence. The fact that mental aberration forms a special study and phase of life increases his difficulties and limits his possibilities. Where there is apparent failure both inside asylums and without, such failures may very possibly be attributed to the deficiencies of the doctrine, the discipline of the religion itself, the organisations peculiar to it, or the functionaries associated with it in our day. If the Christian