Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/78

 If it should appear that the results of Spiritual Healing are attributable to ordinary activities of the human mind, and that no difference exists between cures by this means and those resulting from ordinary mental influences of the nature of 'suggestion,' then the Church must be prepared to abandon all miraculous explanations in these cases. From the medical point of view the main thing to be insisted upon is that all alleged cures must be submitted to the ordinary examination by observation, experiment, and induction.

At the present time the whole question of Spiritual Healing is in so nebulous a condition that it is not easy to obtain suitable cases for investigation. Much has been said and written on the matter; comparisons have been made with the cures said to be effected at Lourdes; even the Venerable Bede has been quoted as an authority on medicine. But when a request is presented for the production of actual cases for investigation by trained medical men, it is found that the sources of supply are few and very limited.

An examination of some of these cases appears to reveal the fact that so far no actual cure of any definite gross organic disease can be recorded. It must be remembered that to avoid any loophole for error the requirements