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/65

 I think the quieting and encouraging influences of religion are of the greatest value in all illness, and I believe a greater use might be made of such power.

Possibly the gravest shock that a human being may receive, so far as it concerns himself or herself, is to be told that fatal disease is present in the system. So great may be the actual shock that many a medical practitioner shrinks from inflicting it, and purposely avoids direct allusion to the certainty of dissolution. Whether this is justifiable or no, depends very largely upon the susceptibilities of the patient and the tact of the doctor. But the word 'operation' is, by some, almost as much dreaded as the word 'death'; in fact even more, as it always implies to the lay mind the infliction of hours of pain, and days of discomfort, though this is far from being the truth in most instances.

'Rather let me die than make me undergo an operation' is the not infrequent remark of the highly-strung sufferer. And then comes in all the sympathy, tact, and good breeding of the surgeon. He will gently explain