Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/137

 MEDICAL ASPECTS OF MENTAL HEALING

, M.A., M.B.

I. Spiritual Healing in the Light of Modern Medical Science

I have been asked in this chapter to put together some recent expressions of opinion by members of my own profession on the subject of 'mental' and 'spiritual' healing. No attempt whatever is made to give an exhaustive summary. It will be sufficient for my purpose if I can make clear to the non-medical reader—

(1) That there is nothing new in the elaborate and confident pretensions now being thrust forward by a variety of 'healers.'

(2) That, so far from scientific medicine 'standing helpless in the presence of a new phenomenon,' she is in possession of a very large amount of clinical material on which quite definite conclusions have been formed; and, as always, she is perfectly ready to consider and investigate any new evidence