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/49

 campaign lightly. Much counsel is needed before the allies can give battle.

The respective spheres of action of the cleric and the doctor have to be mapped out; so that all the efforts of the one may support and never hamper the other.

It will be seen that the medical contributors, not unreasonably, seriously deprecate any attempt on the part of the minister of religion to invade the province of medicine. Such intrusion is none the less dangerous because it may be unintentional. All 'treatment,' whether it be by means of drugs, surgery, or hypnotic suggestion, must necessarily be a matter for the doctor and those working under his immediate direction: and for them only. In so far as he may be concerned with physical disabilities the priest must inevitably defer to the physician.

At the same time the value of spiritual ministrations in sickness is emphasised on every page of this book.

'Probably no limb, no viscus is so far a vessel of dishonour as to lie wholly outside the renewals of the spirit,' says Sir Clifford Allbutt. But we may go further than this in certain directions. Remembering that the health of mind and body are mutually dependent, and that troublesome thoughts may bring sickness