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/188

 practical purpose of life; and to act as wise advisers to their people in this matter.

(2) The clergy will do well to remember that a great deal of bodily ill-health may exist quite independently of bodily disease. These cases are commoner than cases of organic malady. There is plenty of scope for ameliorative work in connexion with them. At the risk of being thought egotistical, I may be allowed to quote a case which recently came under my own observation, and which is typical of a large number of others.

A young man, who was clearly very far from being of a neurotic or hysterical type, came to me complaining of severe pain in the region of the heart. It had, according to his account, been gradually increasing for some time. It frequently came on after he had run upstairs, and on one occasion had been intense after running to catch a train. It was sometimes accompanied by violent palpitation and breathlessness, and had no relation to food. Would I tell him if his heart was all right? I examined the heart and could find no trace of any abnormal condition. Nor could I find any evidence of anything in the abdomen which would be likely to account for the pain. I told him that his heart was absolutely sound and that there appeared to be nothing to