Christian health care has contributed to the advancement of modern medicine and other fields of health care, including nursing. It has also brought health care to poor communities in need around the world.
The following article from the Christian
Medical Fellowship Web site was written by Rosie Beal-Preston, a medical
student at St Mary's in London. It highlights the historical contributions that
Christians have made to the field of Christian
health care and the mainstream medical community.
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Public health, preventative medicine and epidemiology
"Early on Christians realized the connection between health and hygiene. Girolamo Fracastoro, a very versatile student in the sixteenth-century, began to investigate the spread of contagious diseases. In the next century his work was continued by Thomas Sydenham. Ministers advocated personal hygiene. It was John Wesley who said 'Cleanliness is, indeed, next to Godliness.'"
"The social activism of the Quakers is well-known, among them John Fothergill
who campaigned to eliminate social wrongs on grounds that they undermined the
health of the people. Another Quaker, John Howard, had a great concern for prisons,
where overcrowding and typhus were rife, and successfully promoted two prison
reform Acts of Parliament. Edward Jenner, a devout man, was responsible for
the beginnings of immunology and in ridding the world of the scourge of smallpox."
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Social need
"In the nineteenth-century, the Industrial Revolution had led a drift to the inner cities and intense social needs among the poor. It was the Quakers, Evangelicals and Methodists who in particular applied themselves vigorously to meeting these needs."
"A nation wide movement of Christian missions to help the poor was founded. Huge sums of money were raised by voluntary subscriptions. And armies of volunteers went to slum areas to offer practical help. Attention was paid to the misfits of society, such as drunkards, criminals and prostitutes, as well as homeless teenagers."
"The Salvation Army, founded in 1865 by William Booth, provided much-needed medical care in impoverished inner city areas and homes for women who had been induced into prostitution. Unmarried mothers were cared for, and these projects have spread all over the world. Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded by Charles West, a Baptist, to meet the needs of sick children who were inadequately cared for by .habitually drunk (nurses) with easy-going, selfish indifference to their patients, and no knowledge or skill of nursing.'"
"Dr Thomas Barnardo set up his children's homes after seeing the terrible plight of thousands of hungry and homeless children in the East End. Inner city missions bringing a combination of medical care and the gospel were set up. Christians were at the forefront of temperance movements. Care for the blind and deaf were areas drawing direct inspiration from Jesus. Use of Braille worldwide and schools for the deaf were pioneered by evangelical Christians."
"St Joseph's Hospice in Hackney, founded by the Sisters of Charity in 1905, was the prototype of the modern hospice movement. Dame Cicely Saunders founded St. Christopher's Hospice in 1967, with the aim of providing as peaceful an atmosphere as possible for those in their terminal illness, while offering an environment of Christian love and support."
Developing world missions
"Jesus commanded his followers to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19), as well as exhorting them to love their neighbors as themselves. There have been several waves of missionary work during two millennia, and in each case medical work has played a key part."
"Dr John Scudder was among the first Western missionaries of the modern era and in 1819 went to Ceylon. Among the best-known pioneer medical missionaries were David Livingstone (Central Africa), Albert Schweitzer, a talented doctor, theologian and musician, who devoted his life to people living in the remote forests of Gabon, and Albert Cook, who founded Mengo Hospital in Uganda. William Wanless founded the Christian Miraj Hospital in India, and Ida Scudder founded the world-famous Vellore Medical College in the same country."
"Hudson Taylor spread the gospel and western medicine to China and founded the China Inland Mission. Paul Brand pioneered missions to lepers. Henry Holland and his team, working in the north-west frontier of the Indian sub-continent, operated on hundreds of cataracts every day. Others have been influential in the prevention of such diseases as malaria and tuberculosis."
Women doctors
There was a strong Christian element in the motivation of the pioneers of medical education for women. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor, was a Quaker, while Elizabeth Garrett came from a very devout family. Ann Clark, another Quaker, was the first woman surgeon and worked at the Women's Hospital and the Children's Hospital in Birmingham. Sophia Jex-Blake, another devout Christian, founded the London School of Medicine for Women, while Clara Swain was the first woman doctor to go overseas (to Asia) as a medical missionary.
Nursing
"Modern nursing owes much to Christian influences. Most nursing, like most medicine, was carried out by monastic orders within their own hospitals for centuries. In AD 650, a group of devout nuns volunteered to take care of the sick at the Hotel Dieu in Paris, and most other nursing followed this pattern. In the seventeenth-century, a parish priest shocked by the conditions in the poor quarters of Paris, set up a nursing order under the name of Dames de Charite. Civic and secular authorities were somewhat slow to recognize the need for paid, rather than voluntary nurses. In the nineteenth-century, 'modern nursing' was born, in no small measure due to the work of Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale. Their revolution in the practice of nursing included making it a more socially acceptable pursuit for women."
"Florence Nightingale was deeply influenced by a small Christian hospital at Kaiserswerth in Germany, run by 'deaconesses', a group of Protestant women. Their response to biblical commands to care for the sick and educate neglected children, provided the templates for modern daily hospital nursing. Florence Nightingale encouraged better hygiene, improved standards and night-nursing, as well as founding the first nursing school. Nurses gained professional status at the end of the century, largely thanks to the work of Ethel Bedford Fenwick, with the majority of nurses being inspired to serve by Christian ethics. Many missionary nurses such as Mother Teresa and Emma Cushman have worked tirelessly, bringing hygiene and western medicine to the four corners of the globe."
A new allegiance
"This article has aimed to present some of the enormous contribution the followers of Christ have made to the science and practice of medicine. Christians have consistently raised the social status of the weak, sick and handicapped and sought to love and care for them to the utmost of their abilities. Christians have been pioneers among hospital building and staffing, in research and ethics, in promoting increased standards of care, and in immunology, public health and preventative medicine. They have carried Western Medicine across the globe and improved the quality of life for countless millions of people."
"Christianity gives men and women a new perspective and allegiance; their lives are spent in joyful grateful service of the God who has redeemed them and given them new life. In many ways, Christianity and medicine are natural allies; medicine gives men and women unique opportunities to express their faith in daily practical caring for others, embodying the commands of Christ; 'whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matthew 25:40)"
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