Why, God?

Pup · Apr 8, 2008

The situation is 1850s Maryland USA, Methodist Episcopal religion, but the situation is so basic and timeless, I think the views of any Protestant religion based on faith and works would be relevant. Thanks in advance for any help.

An enthusiastic young doctor, just starting to practice, is seeking spiritual counselling to cope with the fact that his patients don't always get better.

He, of course, has prayed for the ability to diagnose and prescribe correctly, for help in finding the best medical literature, for the wisdom to call in a consulting doctor if his skill is insufficient, and so forth. Intellectually, he knows that not all diseases are curable and that not all treatments work, but that doesn't help with his guilt and sadness when he sees a patient suffer or die, that he thinks he should have been able to help.

How would he be counselled? For example, could he do something spiritually (repent, learn humility, give up a vice, etc.) to get better answers to his prayers? Or is some suffering simply God's will for a particular patient, which he must learn to accept as not his fault?

Note that I'm just looking for what advice would be given by a typical believer in that fictional situation, and not for the "real" answers, so hopefully this won't turn into a real-life debate about religion.

DWSTXS · Apr 8, 2008

I think that, in that time period, people were hardy, and much more self-reliant, and because of the hardships they faced on a daily basis, they didn't have as much time to worry and mull over the bigger picture of it all. Maybe I'm not making my point clear enough here, so let me add this, I believe that they would be much more prone to say 'It is God's will' and let it go at that.

Of course, that doesn't do you a whole hell of a lot of good if you are intent on pursuing this characters thought processes along those lines anyway.

If I were you, I'd read some accounts of daily life back in that time period, and maybe try to find some actual diary materials to source from.

maybe google terms like 'religion in 1800's' or something along those lines

I recall, not too long ago, seeing online, something about a huge database of info detailing how daily life was conducted in the 1800's, and if I recall correctly, it delved into hundreds of very specific areas. language and speech, clothes, social mores etc

JoNightshade · Apr 8, 2008

If I were counseling this guy, I would remind him that as a Christian, the earth is not our permanent home and we are "aliens" here. Heaven is our true home. That is why there will always be suffering on earth. I agree with DW in that I highly doubt this would be an issue for a doctor in this time period. Medical science wasn't what it is now, and he'd be used to people dying from various maladies all around him - since he was a kid.

Perhaps someone else can recommend some specific scriptures, but there is a lot about how our hope is in Jesus and in heaven. The apostle Paul in particular suffered a LOT during his time on earth, but he counted it "light and momentary affliction." That's in.... 2 Corinthians 4, you can look it up and read it on Biblegateway.com. Actually that whole chapter is really good for what your character is dealing with.

You might also want to read Pilgrim's Progress, a classic of Christian literature that was very popular during that period. I suspect that most children and families would have read it.

Mr. Fix · Apr 8, 2008

I agree with the above posts and I would just like to add that in the 1800's medicine was still quite risky. So praying to God could have an almost equal chance of working compaired to any kind of 'surgery.' There was (in my research - I love westerns) very much the attitude of "It's Gods will."

I read alot of Louis L'Amour.

Good Luck.

Mike Martyn · Apr 8, 2008

THey would have been used to death from an early age.

The grave of my great grandfather who lived in that time perod and was incidently a medical doctor is surrounded by five little head stones in the shape of lambs, some died at birth but some made it to two years old. He had five other children who survived him though he went through two wives in the process.

Perhaps your character might reflect back to his brother who died age 9 say of "lock jaw" which is what tetnus was referred to back then. Just a thought.

Judg · Apr 9, 2008

I don't think the situation is timeless, to tell the truth. That's a pretty modern hubris. The Word of Faith movement had not yet been born. It's hard to imagine anybody taking that seriously in a world that had not yet encountered Kenneth Hagin.

C.S. Lewis pointed out (this quote is from memory, and therefore probably inaccurate around the edges): "Put down this book for a minute and contemplate the fact that all the world religions were preached for centuries before the invention of anesthetic." Probably from The Problem of Pain.

People in past times were much closer to the possibility and reality of death than we are now, and much more aware of how little they knew, with the glaring exception of Enlightenment philosophers ;o).

What I'm basically saying is that I would have a hard time accepting a person of that time developing that very modern hang-up.

I will cheerfully admit I am wrong if somebody can produce historical examples.

CACTUSWENDY · Apr 9, 2008

Tried to send a PM to you but you do not have it...sent you a rep and ran out of room.

But different types of sects had different views on this. It might pay to check out the early times in the USA for both types....'Methodist Episcopal religion'. I do not think there was a sect that was considered both. Each were different in view points. IMHO

Is good what the others have said.

Pup · Apr 9, 2008

Thanks everybody!

CACTUSWENDY said:
It might pay to check out the early times in the USA for both types....'Methodist Episcopal religion'. I do not think there was a sect that was considered both. Each were different in view points.

The Methodist Episcopal church was a single major religion in the 1850s. In the 20th century, it recombined with the M.E. South church (which had split in the 1840s over slavery and other doctrinal issues) to become the modern United Methodist Church.

In the 1850s, it was still transitioning from its hellfire-and-brimstone, speaking-in-tongues days of the very early 1800s to its more modern conservative image. For what it's worth, here's the specific situation of the M.E. Church in the early 1850s in the Maryland town that my fictional town is very very loosely inspired by, from an 1870s history of the town: http://books.google.com/books?id=rU7QCQTpvroC&pg=PA451&vq=methodist+episcopal&output=html

There had been some animosity with the Presbyterians as both sought converts in the spreading country, over the basic conflict of saved by grace (Presbyterian) vs. the importance of faith and works (Methodist).

It's that emphasis on faith and works that makes me wonder if, from a doctor's point of view, he would consider his career in medicine his "works," and therefore an important expression of and result of his faith.

The problem is, I can find lots of things on how the sick were counselled, but I'm having trouble finding how a doctor might be counselled.

Medicine has changed, but there's still a limit of medical knowledge, even if it's moved further out. I can't imagine a young idealistic Methodist doctor today, specializing in AIDS or cancer, not realizing on a regular basis the limits of medical knowledge, the possibility and reality of death, and using his faith to help support him as he searches the latest medical journals for reports on new treatments and makes decisions about his patients' care. And I'd expect a doctor in the past would do something similar, though he'd be dealing with cholera or malignant scarlatina. But I dunno. I'm neither a doctor nor a Christian.

Judg · Apr 9, 2008

Speaking in tongues? In the early 1800's? Um no. Pretty hard to find anything like that preceding the Azusa Street Revival. And then only in tiny isolated pockets that only church historians would know about and not too many of them. (Sorry. After editing two of my husband's theses on church history, I haven't quite succeeded in shaking it all out of my head.) Fire and brimstone tent meetings, sure.

A doctor using his faith to support him, absolutely. Then or now. Maybe the problem I am having here is more personal. As a Christian, I get a little impatient with both the lines of counselling you're proposing as too simplistic and not even Biblical, the first more than the second. I do have to acknowledge that there are scads of people who would counsel one way or the other, both in the past and in the present.

To see the fact that not all his patients recover as symptomatic of a spiritual shortcoming in himself - well, that's just wrong-headed and a great way to get really screwed up. It could make for a really interesting story, getting his head screwed up and then unscrewing it. For that you would have to have a very profound understanding of Christianity.

Counselling him to accept it as God's will could also happen. It is less likely to turn him into a nut case too. It is also simplistic and uncomfortable. The unsimplistic answers are also uncomfortable. We as people, whether people of faith or not, like to reduce the great complexities of life into very simple paradigms and life has a really nasty habit of shaking them rather badly.

For what it's worth, you wouldn't have to be young and idealistic to have that attitude. An older man would have a more refined understanding of it, though.

Sorry if I came on a little too strong in my last post. I think I misread your initial post a bit.

Melisande · Apr 10, 2008

You might want to read "The Wide House" by Taylor Caldwell.

Novel set in the 1850's in a small town of the shores of Lake Erie in northwestern New York State - the story of a matriach, Janie Cauder, a widow who immigrated to the US from England with her four children, but also a story of the waves of intolerance - anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism - that swept over parts of America in the 1850's.

Quote from this link; http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/vol/38942.shtml

Taylor Caldwell always tried to paint an accurate picture of the era she wrote about. You might find something in this book to help you out. I love her books. She was a wonderful author.

You can also find it at Amazon.com;
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0884111563/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

Pup · Apr 10, 2008

Judg said:
Speaking in tongues? In the early 1800's? Um no. Pretty hard to find anything like that preceding the Azusa Street Revival.

Admittedly, that era a couple generations earlier isn't my strong point. I was thinking of the Cane Ridge era, and also the phenomenon of "Methodist jerks," but come to think of it, you're right, I can't recall any descriptions of the latter that included speak in tongues--just falling, shaking, incoherent cries, etc. And Cane Ridge wasn't all Methodist, so the general descriptions there wouldn't necessarily apply to each sect participating.

A doctor using his faith to support him, absolutely. Then or now. Maybe the problem I am having here is more personal. As a Christian, I get a little impatient with both the lines of counselling you're proposing as too simplistic and not even Biblical, the first more than the second. I do have to acknowledge that there are scads of people who would counsel one way or the other, both in the past and in the present.

That's the thing. I'm trying to figure out if those "scads of people" might include a typical fervent M.E. friend in 1852 Maryland.

Or what other support or advice might be offered. The main character's family is M.E. and he attends but he's not had that conversion experience so isn't a member and hasn't been that faithful.

To see the fact that not all his patients recover as symptomatic of a spiritual shortcoming in himself - well, that's just wrong-headed and a great way to get really screwed up.

That would be the plan.

He's only 21, thrown into a solo practice on the death of his physician preceptor, and needs to figure out what's right for him, both spiritually and among the competing medical theories. He's leaning toward that explanation himself, and it's not helping, so I'm now thinking the following would be the best counterpoint:

Counselling him to accept it as God's will could also happen. It is less likely to turn him into a nut case too. It is also simplistic and uncomfortable.

But of course, if he's too accepting, that means his chosen life's work of trying to help the sick is pointless, because God's will would over-ride anything he did.

Poor fellow has a long way to go to get life figured out. And that's not even counting his conflicts over allopathy, hydropathy, homeopathy, etc.

Thanks again for your help!

Laurawrites · Apr 10, 2008

belief

Perhaps you are being too isolated with the doctor?

As a Christian, you are taught that the world does not revolve around you, it's much more the opposite. Every living thing has a distinct and important purpose. Hence, every event in life, including death, will have monumental repercussions on those left alive. No death is in vain, so to speak.

There is an old tale from my area (Southwestern Virginia) about a cruel man during the mid-1800s. He was heartless, aggressive, and an alcoholic who grew even worse every time he indulged. This man also had one child who died very young.

Even the child's death didn't affect him until one night some time later, he was in the old jail for disturbing the peace. At the time, it was beside one of the earliest cemeteries, where his child was buried.

During the night, a blinding light came into his cell and there was no escape. It drifted in from the cemetery.

The next morning the jailers came in and he was completely different. They let him out, he never touched alcohol again. Years later, he was one of the most important ministers in the city where this happened. He helped the homeless, fed the poor and elderly, and you get the picture. Until the day he died, he claimed that light had been his child.

To sum it all up, yes his only child died, and because of that, he became a leader that his community couldn't do without. For every action, there is an equal reaction at some point. Believers never believe it "just happens." There is a reason for it even if it takes us years to see it.

In Christian history, what were the disciples before Christ's death? They were cowards, for the most part. They denied him, denied knowing him when asked, and attempted to find fault in what he did. Yet, after his death, they became brave, powerful, and driven by love for others as opposed to personal concern.

These are just my thoughts on the matter. I hope this helps.

IceCreamEmpress · Apr 10, 2008

I should think there would be religious works of that era, written from that denominational perspective, that touched on these matters. Charles Elliot might have talked about some of the life/death/illness stuff in his writings, for instance?

The 1852 edition of "Doctrines and Disciplines" is up on GoogleBooks, if that's helpful.

Pup · Apr 14, 2008

Here I am, responding to my own question.

But...

Found a cool book at google books, The Moral Aspects of Medical Life, 1846. The bad news is that it was written in German and translated in English to be published in London, so it's not specific to any one denomination.

But the date is just about perfect for what I need, and it's specifically about how doctors can use religion to deal with the ethical questions and emotional strain of practice.

For example, on the page that the link opens to, it covers some of the very topics in this thread, saying that a doctor can trust that events are in God's hands after he's done his best. But to have that peace of mind, he must neglect no means of self-improvement, make no concessions to indolence or carelessness, and not have any false pride that prevents getting others' opinions.

ColoradoGuy · Apr 14, 2008

Also bear in mind that the physicians of that era rarely cured anybody of anything, and were often quite aware of that. Often people expected no more than a diagnosis and prognosis from the physician. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (father of the Supreme Court justice) was a physician of that era who wrote quite a bit about the feeble powers of medicine to cure anything. So I think your basic premise--that of a physician of that time facing a spiritual crisis over his inability to cure patients--is a problematic one.

Pup · Apr 14, 2008

ColoradoGuy said:
Also bear in mind that the physicians of that era rarely cured anybody of anything, and were often quite aware of that. Often people expected no more than a diagnosis and prognosis from the physician.

Um, really? In the era of heroic medicine?

Actually, I picked the early 1850s for a reason. It was just at the tail end of heroic medicine, when I'd say that doctors and patients expected just the opposite: a doctor would do direct battle with disease.

The allopathic medical profession, as a whole, was in a period of transition, when doctors shifted from believing they needed to actively fight and overcome disease, to realizing it might be better to wait, watch and prescribe the minimum, while nature healed itself.

For example, from an article advocating the new ways, from the 1857 Medical Times and Gazette:

I will venture to add, that... the administration of remedies rather as auxiliaries towards a cure than as positive means of cure, will bring about results of an infinitely more satisfactory kind, than can await the efforts of the physician who disdains to take up so humble a ground of action, but persists in seeking to vindicate for himself and for his art, the heroic character of a controller of nature, and a conqueror of disease.

So my fictional doctor, young but educated in the heroic philosophy by an older doctor, would be facing individually a realization that the medical profession in general was dealing with: perhaps their self-image as a science which could advance to the point of actively conquering disease, was in fact a science which could only passively study disease and try to mitigate suffering while the patient either healed, or didn't.

Religion isn't my strongest point, but I think I'm on pretty firm ground with the medical aspect.

ColoradoGuy · Apr 14, 2008

Pup said:
Um, really? In the era of heroic medicine?

Actually, I picked the early 1850s for a reason. It was just at the tail end of heroic medicine, when I'd say that doctors and patients expected just the opposite: a doctor would do direct battle with disease.

There were several counter-examples to the allopaths. It was the era of other things besides "heroic medicine." The Thomsonians and eclectics, for example, preached moderation from such things as the massive mercury doses advocated by some allopaths. It is certainly true there was the "heroic" practice model, perhaps best exemplified by Benjamin Rush in the late 18th century. But the theories of Pierre Louis, of "expectant waiting," were becoming more influential after that. Dr. Hahnemann's homeopathic theories were becoming popular, especially among educated people who saw the havoc heroic treatment caused. Of course there's no reason why you can't construct a character who is troubled by his inability to cure his patients; my point was only that many of the larger public wouldn't really have expected him to. You certainly could make your character believable.

GeorgeK · Apr 14, 2008

Pup said:
But I dunno. I'm neither a doctor nor a Christian.

I am both and I have to agree with you.

The 1850's was a truly interesting time in medicine and religion. Bacteriology was just a theory to some and heresy to most. Somehow many people thought that proof of microbes would somehow disprove the existence of God, just like how some today think proof of evolution or alien life would somehow disprove God.

1850
No official anasthesia, just a bottle of whiskey if you were lucky. Were the Methodists of that era prohibitionists? The surgeon would brandish his scalpel with a bow (as in taking a bow) and hone it on a strop or even his boot to the audience of onlookers and charge to the table where strongarmed men restrained the patient. At that time surgery was a branch of Barber college, not medical school. The traditional red and white spiraled poles are the reminder of the blood soaked rags drying, naturally blown into a spiral by the wind.

No antisepsis even though Galen about 1800 years earlier wrote about the need to cleanse wounds. It's no wonder that Internists are sometimes still trained that they have to "save the patient from the surgeon".

Today's Medical Schools do touch on the topic of how you can't save everyone, long before you ever even see a patient. I'm sure that they did the same then. As others have pointed out, it was a fact of daily life. I'm sure the 1850's had its share of doctors with god-complexes.

Supposedly at that time there were sometimes students selected at random or by lowest grades to be the cadaver for anatomy class if the local mortuary could not provide one. Talk about taking one for the team. I'm not sure if that's just an urban myth or if it really happened, but many religions at the time forbade autopsy and many schools lacked refrigeration.

Pup · Apr 14, 2008

Ooo, good discussion!

ColoradoGuy said:
Of course there's no reason why you can't construct a character who is troubled by his inability to cure his patients; my point was only that many of the larger public wouldn't really have expected him to. You certainly could make your character believable.

My working title is The Hydropath, though the main character starts out as an allopath. Can you guess where we're going with this?

Actually, I'd call it The Hygienist, but that sounds more like it's about a modern dental assistant than a follower of William Alcott and Russell Trall.

GeorgeK said:
1850
No official anasthesia, just a bottle of whiskey if you were lucky. Were the Methodists of that era prohibitionists?

Yep, they were T-totallers. A tiny nitpick: anaesthesia was around, and I can even pinpoint when it came to my main character's area: "In July, 1847, [Dr. Charles Ohr] introduced the use of chloroform into Cumberland," the Maryland town that my MC's fictional hometown is situated near.

But I agree, there was no antisepsis in surgery, or practical application of germ theory, and the cautions of using chloroform meant surgery still had to be done quickly.

Though my main character doesn't consider himself a surgeon, he would have attended lectures on surgery in 1852 given by Dr. Nathan R. Smith at the University of Maryland in Baltimore (that sounds so modern, but what can you do?). Surgery was taught in all the main medical schools at that time, and Dr. Smith had been professor of surgery there since 1827. Here's an article Dr. Smith wrote in 1843 on aneurisms.

I'm hoping, in context, all of this will sound more accurate to the period than it does out of context against the backdrop of stereotypes about what doctors were like "back then."

chan · Apr 14, 2008

Hi,

This all sounds very interesting. In my "real job" (aside from writing fiction) I specialize in history of medicine/bioethics. You are definitely right about the advent of anaesthesia. I don't know if you are focusing on that, but that in itself has a very interesting religious debate that I think you could bring into play as a lot of young doctors were struggling with this issue. I also do not think it is a stretch to apply it to other concerns about medicine that he may have.

For instance,
During the "fall" of Adam and Eve, God sentenced man to a life of labor which many have interpreted to include pain. Your protag might be confused as to whether he should be alleviate human suffering at all, but then he might wonder how he could reconcile something like farmers alleviating their labor and suffering by using an ox to plow the fields.
I'm not sure the particular of the particular religious sect that you are talking about, but predestination was certainly a concern in some protestant sects as were remnants of the Cotton Mather/Douglass debate of the Boston inoculation debate which occurred much earlier.
I think that there are so many religious questions that can be brought into play for this young doctor in this particular time you have chosen! After all, before the oversight that would become a part of medicine in the next century, it was just the doctor alone with his patient and God.

chan · Apr 14, 2008

Also, alcohol was not used as widely as you would think, as it made patients difficult to manage, so your protag may not have even considered that part of the equation in terms of his religious beliefs as it may have been unecessary to look at in that light

GeorgeK · Apr 16, 2008

Pup said:
Ooo, good discussion!

I'm hoping, in context, all of this will sound more accurate to the period than it does out of context against the backdrop of stereotypes about what doctors were like "back then."

Oh, 1850's, you could do just about anything and if set properly it could be believable. Good stuff would be radical, and crazy bad stuff might be normal. (The first thing in medical school they told me was that in ten years half of what they taught me will have been proven to be wrong and my job was to figure out which half) That was the wild west of medicine. A few surgeons went to medical school, a few internists went to Barber School, and about a half century later the two schools would merge officially.

Read, "The Red Badge of Courage," for the low expectations of medical science, and just about anything you could imagine for the good expectations. If you want to make it really sneaky, I'd add the name of Dr Lister as a radical new (correct) thought, or some variation, maybe Goodyear, who made the first surgical rubber gloves if I remember correctly...you know things...people...dates...tend to merge in our memories over time, and I could be a little off.

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