Looking back : a glance from empiricism to experiment, from superstition to research : Christian science refuted : delivered before The Middlesex Hospital Medical Society, on November 11th, 1909 / by Sir Henry Morris.

  • Morris, Henry, Sir, 1844-1926.
Date:
1909
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Looking back : a glance from empiricism to experiment, from superstition to research : Christian science refuted : delivered before The Middlesex Hospital Medical Society, on November 11th, 1909 / by Sir Henry Morris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    mesmerism, hypnotism, thought-reading, table-turning, and faith-healing were temporarily in vogue, and then passed away again out of favour or notice. Just now there is a phase of opinion—entertained, too, by some honourable and distinguished men—that there is scope and reason for the exercise of “ Suggestion ” as a remedial and curative agent; and it has been seriously put forward that the already vastly overburdened medical curriculum should be still further charged by the addition of “ a sound psycho- logical training,” so that every medical practitioner shall be able to employ “ mental therapeutics,” and to engage in “ the scientific practice of suggestion.” Surely it behoves the leaders of medical thought and opinion to walk most warily in this direction. A committee to make a careful scientific investigation of the nature and subsequent history of the cases asserted to have been cured by Christian Science, by hypnotism, and at Lourdes, might make a valuable contribution as to the questions involved; but I venture to think it would be highly undesirable to combine the practice of “ suggestion ” with the ordinary practice of our profession. Such a course seems to offer encouragement to those outside the profession to make arro- gant pretentions to curative powers ; and might possibly lead to unfounded accusations and regrettable indiscretions even within the profession itself, especially if the character of the cases which are regarded as proper subjects for this treatment be remembered. Even if it should come to be decided that a set of persons should be properly trained to practise treatment by suggestion, I am not quite sure that the doctor should have more to do with the treatment than merely to examine and pronounce whether the case is suit- able for its employment. I will conclude by repeating what I have previously said in the course of this Address, namely, that all actions involve belief, and all successful action true belief, and that to arrive at true belief in medicine we must go through scientific scepticism to knowledge, through doubt to certainty, and replace empiricism by experiment and superstition by research.