MODERN NURSING. 77g 



Protestantism never had and never can have. The latter has, in its 

 imitation of the ways and words of the mediaeval rules of Catholic 

 orders, proved one truth, and I emphasize that because here is the 

 great difference between church nursing and modern nursing. " Cleri- 

 cal care of the sick is destined, under the rules, to serve the Church, 

 whatever that may mean, while serving the sick ; the main duties and 

 aims in view are ecclesiastical, and not humane, and, instead of a nurse 

 solely given to the performance of her duties, you deal with ecclesi- 

 astical officers " (Virchow). And the necessity is clear, that what- 

 ever organization is deemed advisable in the interest of the sick, that 

 organization ought to be in our times w*ecclesiastical and unsectarian. 

 I have alluded to the fact that whatever medical knowledge existed in 

 the masses centuries ago did so through the medium of the clergy. That 

 knowledge was but trifling, for the ancient medicine of the Greeks and 

 the more recent labors of the Arabs were sealed books at that time. 

 But, then, the clergyman was the doctor. Instead of being so at pres- 

 ent, we are daily met w T ith the fact that the exact tendency of modern 

 medicine is an unknown territory to the clergy, and that among them 

 the upholders of all sorts of doubtful practices find their most sincere 

 supporters. Medicine is to them a matter of faith, not science. It is 

 not necessary to refer to that Brooklyn impostor whose criminal career 

 has been detailed but lately in the secular press. For no church and 

 no denomination must be held responsible for his methods of fleecing 

 the ignorant and credulous. But the instances where actual clergy- 

 men assume responsibilities beyond their clerical powers and duties 

 are also very numerous, and the protection by the Church of a regular 

 monk in a Jersey monastery, who, in the church of his own institu- 

 tion, plies his nefarious trade of laying on hands, and exorcising the 

 devils of disease for cash, these ten years, proves to what extent faith 

 can be abused and the essence of religion distorted. We still live in 

 a time when mediaeval ignorance and modern enlightenment appear to 

 find resting-places side by side. That the latter is getting the upper 

 hand, after all, this sketch will prove, I hope, for even the mediaeval 

 organizations in the interest of the poor and sick, which I was anxious 

 to estimate at their full value, have finally failed ignominiously. Al- 

 most every large society of the kind would degenerate in the end. 

 The uniform report concerning most of them, mainly the male orders, is 

 this, that with increasing power and wealth the original unselfishness 

 of the founder disappeared, the actual work was left to low servants, 

 the wealth of the community was accumulated in the Church. Thus 

 it was that every great calamity sweeping over the lands was a source 

 of riches to the Church. Never was divine blessing more visible 

 in the Church than when half the population of Europe succumbed 

 under the destruction of the "black-death." Never was more busi- 

 ness shrewdness developed by "fathers" and " brothers " than when 

 a patient, sick with leprosy much less contagious than was made 



