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/154

 supposed the condition which he examined to be cancerous, makes no difference. The patient continues to announce as a fact what is almost demonstrably untrue; and his followers will no doubt continue to accept his statement in preference to first-hand evidence, so long as this particular cult survives.

But, for those who are not blinded by ignorant credulity, the following extracts from a letter from Dr. Combe Atthill may be of interest. Dr. Atthill's experience could, of course, be paralleled by any medical man of long practice:

'Shortly after I retired from practice, some ten years ago, a well-known clergyman wrote to me, saying that members of his congregation were being much disturbed by the advent amongst them of a lady professing herself to be a faith healer, and saying that her conversion was due to the fact of my having told her that she was suffering from a dreadful disease, and that her sole hope of cure lay in the performance of a very dangerous operation. She refused to submit to this, and instead placed herself in the hands of "the healer," and was cured. He concluded by asking me to give him particulars of her case.

'I had no recollection of any such patient, but, as the name was given, I traced her, and