Doctors Favored

Faith-healing was debated at Lambeth Conference, 1920. The Archbishop of Canterbury appointed their Lordships the Bishops of Oxford, Liverpool, St. Albans and Southwark to investigate. Their Lordships have now reported. They say that "no sick person must look to a clergyman to do what it is a physician's or surgeon's duty to do." They add that it is the Church's duty to assist doctors to combat disease in God's name. "The physician is conscious that he is working with a mysterious partner inherent in life which we call vis medicatrix naturae, or the tendency of an established system to recover its equilibrium." Priest and doctor can join in the encouragement and sustenance of this "vis," this "will to live."

Associated with the Bishops were such eminent physicians as Sir Thomas Allbutt, Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones, Drs. William Brown, J. A. Hatfield, Jane Walker. They heard evidence on behalf of Christian Science and other forms of faith-healing. But their verdict was flatly in favor of doctors.