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NATIONAL SECL’LAT.COCZnT
N)63O
HOSPITALS & DISPENSARIES
NOT OF
CHRISTIAN ORIGIN.
8T
J.
S Y M E S.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY.
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE ONE
PENNY.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
28, stonecutter street, e.c.
�HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES
NOT OF
CHRISTIAN
ORIGIN.
A very frequent question put to Secularists is, What
hospitals have you built or endowed? And an equally
frequent assertion is made to the effect that the world owes
all those institutions for the care and cure of the sick to
Christianity. A greater mistake was never made, as I shall
try to show.
In the first place, I make bold to assert that mercy, compas
sion, humanity, and benevolence did not, and could not, spring
from religion. All the Gods, or nearly all, were origi
nally cold, callous, and cruel. They inflicted upon man
(if fables may be trusted) all the horrors he endured, and
then quietly and stolidly looked on while he writhed in
his agony No Gods sinned more in this respect than those
of the Jews, in proof of which I refer to the story of the
Flood, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the Israelitish march
through the desert, of the conquest of Palestine, and other
tales of the Old Testament. It was only when man became
civilised that the Gods forsook their barbarism, and the very
mercy man learnt in civilised life was by-and-by ascribed to
the Gods. Every kindly feeling man has must have been learnt
in society—must have been produced there, for Nature
knows nothing of kindness, mercy, or compassion. Nature
and the Gods have not only inflicted flood, pestilence,
famine, and fire, upon man and beast, but they never
interfered to relieve the poor wretches of their suffering.
Wherever man, therefore, learnt his humanity and pity,
most certainly no God or religion ever taught him.
Secondly, as most religions have enjoined the belief in
miracles and miraculous cures of disease, their very spirit
has been antagonistic to the founding of hospitals, in
firmaries, and dispensaries. No religion has done moie
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HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES
harm in this respect than Christianity. Look through the
New Testament, and you will not find a single commenda
tion of medicine, surgery, or any other healing art. All
diseases are there to be cured by miracles ; the physician is
dispensed with, and physic is entirely thrown to the dogs,,
and the priest and the elder are exalted as the miraculous,
healers of both body and soul. Had the spirit of Christianity
been carried out successfully there would not have been a
hospital or anything of the sort now in the world. If this
religion had spread first among barbarians, instead of the
civilised nations of the Roman empire, and if her converts
had been docile instead of independent, we should have
seen, long ere now, what a curse she was to man. But
Christianity inherited all the learning, the arts and sciences,
the laws and social institutions of Greece and Rome. All
these (with few exceptions) she did her best to destroy, and
when that proved impossible, she coolly adopted and claimed
them as her own productions.
What has been said above will tend to show that we owe
none of our best sentiments to religion; but I will now
proceed to exhibit a few facts which will set the matter at
rest, and demonstrate that hospitals and kindred institutions
are not the product of Christianity. In doing this I shall
quote from, and refer to, an article in the current number
(Oct. 1877) of the Westminster Review, on “ Pre-Christian
Dispensaries and Hospitals.” The writer says :—“ It is in
the medical officers, appointed and paid by the State,
that we find the earliest germ and first idea of the
v?s.t. network of hospitals which has spread over the
civilised countries of the world. These medical officers
were an institution in Egypt from a remote antiquity, for in
the eleventh century b.c. there was a College of Physicians
in receipt of public pay, and regulated as to the nature and
extent of their practice. At Athens, in the fifth century
b.c., there were physicians elected and paid by the citizens;
there were also dispensaries in which they received their
patients, and we find mention made of one hospital.”
Turn we next to India. “In the fourth century b.c. an
edict was promulgated in India, by King Asoka, command
ing the establishment of hospitals throughout his dominions;
and we have direct proof that these hospitals were flourish
ing in the fifth and in the seventh centuries a.d.”—they
flourished then for a thousand years. “Among the Romans
under the empire physicians were elected in every city in
�NOT OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN.
5
proportion to the number of inhabitants, and they received
a salary from the public treasury.”
Leaving the Westminster Review for a moment, I will
quote an extract from Tacitus. Referring to the fall of an
amphitheatre at Fidenae, in the ruins of which 50,000
people were killed or otherwise maimed, he says: “Now
during the fresh pangs of this calamity, the doors of the
grandees were thrown open, medicines were everywhere
supplied and administered by proper hands; and at that
juncture the city, though of sorrowful aspect, seemed to
have recalled the public spirit of the ancient Romans, who,
after great battles, constantly relieved the wounded, sustained
them by liberality, and restored them with care.”—“Annals,”
iv. 65. This extract shows not merely what the Romans
did at this date, about 27 a.d., but points back to periods
long past, when their forefathers regularly relieved and healed
the wounded soldiers. Such a nation, though still dread
fully barbarous in some respects, did not require the aid of
Christianity to set it on the path of humanity and mercy ;
the germs of those virtues had been there for ages, and only
required time to develop. Those who wish to see what
the best Romans, in the first century before our era, thought of
benevolence may consult Cicero “ De Officiis,” Bk. I., 14, 15.
Turning again to the Westminster Review, we read that
even the “ancient Mexicans had hospitals in their principal
cities ‘ for the cure of the sick, and the permanent refuge of
disabled soldiers.’” The Mexicans, by the way, and the
Peruvians as well, were working out a splendid civilization
for themselves at the time the barbarians from Spain dis
covered and ruined them. The more we know of those
ancient civilisations the more we must admire them; and it
cannot be denied that Spain herself was, at the time of the
conquest, more superstitious and less civilised than Mexico
or Peru; the eruption of those Christian savages into
Central America threw back the civilization of the continent
for four or five hundred years. I have nothing to say in
palliation of either Mexican or Peruvian religion; but I
must say that the Spaniards, in destroying those ancient
creeds, put nothing better in their place.
It is remarkable, viewed from the Christian standpoint,
that the Mohammedans were the first people known to
have had asylums for lunatics. As Mr. Lecky says, “ Most
commonly the theological notions about witchcraft either
produced madness or determined its form, and through the
�6
HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES
influence of the clergy of the different sections of the
Christian Church, many thousands of unhappy women, who
from their age, their loneliness, and their infirmity, were
most deserving of pity, were devoted to the hatred of
mankind, and, having been tortured with horrible and
ingenious cruelty, were at last burnt alive.”—“ Hist.
European Morals,” ii., 93. While this barbarity, the
genuine and legitimate fruit of Christ’s own action towards
the “possessed,” was practised wholesale among Chris
tians, the Mohammedans were, as early as the seventh
century, housing and nurturing the insane in asylums
at Fez, and they founded another at Cairo, probably about
a.d. 1304. The first Christian asylum for insane persons
was erected at Valencia in Spain, in a.d. 1409, or 700
years later than those first built by Mohammedans. Thus,
it was in the very country which the Mohammedans had
conquered, ruled, and partially civilised, that the first
Christian lunatic asylum was founded, and it is not difficult
to recognise their influence in this humane act. It should
also be remembered that the kind-hearted monk who
founded the asylum in Valencia, did it to shelter the poor
lunatics from the insults, jeers, and other persecutions of
their Christian neighbours, who never allowed them to pass
through the streets in peace.—(See “Europ. Morals,” ii.,94-5.
See also ii., 92).
To quote again the Westminster Review—li The most
remarkable instance of a military hospital was one in Ire
land. The palace of Emania was founded about 300 b.c.,
by the Princess Macha of the golden hair, and continued to
be the chief royal residence of Ulster until 332 a.d., when
it was destroyed. To this palace were attached two houses,
one, the house in which the Red Branch Knights hung up
their arms and trophies, the other in which the sick were cared
for and the wounded healed; this latter was called by the
expressive name Broin Bearg, the House of Sorrow.”
What has been put forward above will be sufficient to
show that we owe neither medicine nor hospitals to Chris
tianity ; indeed, I am not aware that any one ever ascribed
the former to this religion, though it would be just as
rational as to ascribe the latter to it. Neither Judaism (as
found in the Old Testament) nor Christianity (as found in
the New) shows any favour to medicine. The spirit of the
Old Testament may be found in the following passage :—
“ And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was
�NOT OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN.
7
diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great;
yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the
physicians.” (2 Chron. xvi., 12.) The context tells us he
died; the inference is plain—he lost his life because he pre
ferred medical attendance to miraculous power. The Jews
could not more strongly have condemned medicine than
they have done in this passage, for not only did the patient
die, but the physicians are set in direct rivalry with Jehovah.
And here I may ask how it was that the Jews, who were so
favoured of God, had to learn all their medical knowledge
from other nations ? Their God revealed to them all those
senseless ceremonies found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy, but never told them how to heal one
single disease ! Four books, filled for the most part with a
burdensome ritual or instructions in the art of worship,
were vouchsafed by their divinity, but not a word about
healing ! Large portions of those books, too, are occupied
in directions for finding leprosy, but not a word about the
cure of the disease (See Levit. xiii., 44-46). The whole
dress of the priest was prescribed, colour, shape, texture, and
everything—these were of supreme importance, and involved,
of course, the weal or woe of the world—so momentous
were they that their chief divinity went out of his way to
reveal them ; but human suffering was of no concern at all,
and their divinity forgot to reveal the art of healing. Indeed,
he himself claimed the sole right to kill and make alive, to
inflict or to heal disease. All this was fatal to the study of
medicine.
The same remarks, slightly modified, will apply to the
New Testament, where miraculous agency is the only
recognised mode of healing. This may be due to the fact
that the Jews went into captivity in Babylon, rather than in
Greece or Rome, for “ the Babylonians and Assyrians alone,
among the great nations of antiquity, had no physicians.
The sick man was laid on a couch in the public square, and
the passers-by were required to ask him the nature of his
disease, so that if they or any of their acquaintance had
been similarly afflicted they might advise him as to the
remedies he should adopt.” (West. Review, ibid.') How
much this resembles the Gospel story of the pool of Bethesda,
leaving out the angelic descent 1 (John v., 2.) The Baby
lonians were also fond of charms, for they mistook diseases
for devils, as Jesus did. Mr. H. F. Talbot, in his “Assyrian
Talismans and Exorcisms,” quotes a tablet as follows :—•
�HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES.
“ God shall stand by his bedside ; those seven evil spirits
He shall root out and expel from his body; those seven
shall never return to the sick man.” This superstition re
appears in the Gospels :—“ Then goeth he, and taketh with
himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and
they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man
is worse than the first.” (Matt, xii., 45.) Jesus actually
cast this number of devils out of Mary Magdalene. (See
Mark xvi., 9.) In face of this most debasing superstition,
people still worship Jesus as an almighty and omniscient
God ! And though he, beyond all men, taught the mira
culous causes and cures of disease, his professed followers
claim for him and his religion all the credit of originating
the scientific treatment of human ills. For certain, science
never met a more determined foe than Christianity; but
science no sooner gains a victory than Christianity turns
round and claims all the merit of inventing the very thing
she did her utmost to destroy.
That people bearing the name of Christ have, in modern
times, built and founded hospitals, I cheerfully acknowledge;
it matters not to me what names men bear so long as they
do good. But this I fearlessly affirm, that every hospital
ever erected has been built on or by principles which Christ
condemned, so that if he was right, the founders of
hospitals must have been wrong. Not only did Jesus teach
that diseases were to be healed by miracles (Mark xvi., 17,
18), but he strictly forbade the laying up of treasure : as
pointedly as he forbade murder or adultery, he also forbade
the accumulation of wealth. Without the wealth, hospitals
could not have been built, nay, all must have been paupers.
Religion and religious teaching, had they been obeyed,
would have made the world bankrupt; but in Secular
principles lies the salvation of man. Religion points to
another world, to reach which we must renounce this;
Secularism teaches to make the best possible—in money,
intelligence, humanity, and morality—of this world, and to
leave the next—a mere dream, most likely—to look out for
itself. I admit there are good things in the Bible ; but all
the good it contains would have been outweighed a thousand
times by a simple and effectual remedy for only one disease.
Why did divine mercy omit such a remedy ? Let Christians
explain.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Hospitals & dispensaries not of Christian origin
Creator
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Symes, Joseph [1841-1906]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Date of publication from British Library record. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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[1879]
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N630
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Health
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Hospitals & dispensaries not of Christian origin), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Health
Health Services
Hospitals
NSS