Chapter 10: I Was Sick
Chapter Ten
I Was Sick
Health care is perhaps the hot-button issue in our society today. The cost of health care is sky-rocketing at a rate five times the rate of inflation. Millions of people in the United States are without health insurance, many of them children. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, 39.2 million persons in the United States under the age of sixty-five were without health insurance. That was one in six of every person not on Medicare. There were 4.3 million children (under the age of eighteen) with no health insurance overage, or nearly one in nine. (National Center for Health Statistics). At the time this book was written, the numbers were even higher, with some estimates as high as 45 million without health insurance. When those people need medical care, they often wind up going to hospital emergency rooms, which is the most expensive medical care they can get. Many persons, particularly senior citizens, have to make choices among food, rent, and prescriptions, because they can’t afford them all. There is a battle royal (as of this writing) between the Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department, and major drug manufacturers on the one hand, and states, individuals, and citizens’ groups on the other, about importing prescription drugs from Canada again. A debate is raging over the loss of doctors in many areas because of the high costs of malpractice insurance. Health care in the United States, in spite of all the vast resources at our disposal, is not in a “healthy” situation.
The More Things Change . . .
The state of health care in the eighteenth century was low indeed. There was no understanding of the causes of disease. Viruses and bacteria were unheard of. Vaccinations for smallpox appeared before the end of the century, but beyond that, preventive health care was also unheard of. Poor sanitation, poor diet, and general lack of personal hygiene contributed to the spread of disease. The widespread use of poor quality beverage alcohol also weakened resistance to disease. Surgery was crude, limited primarily to amputations, and done without anesthesia. The only anesthesia available to the military, for example, was to give a wounded man as much rum as he could drink, hoping he would get drunk enough to pass out and escape some of the pain involved in amputation. People died in agony with ruptured appendixes, kidney stones, and other such afflictions that are treated routinely today. The poor were particularly vulnerable to waves of diseases such as measles, typhoid, diptheria, dysentery, and so on. They were often not able to get medicine or to see a decent doctor.
But Is That a Religious Question?
John Wesley was always as concerned about the health of the people as he was about their salvation because he believed God cares for the whole person. He was concerned for the whole person—body, mind, and spirit. This concern for health was an expression of the love for neighbor commanded by Christ, and he lived it out all his life. For Wesley, physical health was, indeed, a religious question. Concern for health was a part of holy living. For individuals, simple matters such as hygiene, exercise, and proper diet, were expressions of one’s commitment to holy living. For the church, holiness included caring for the sick, even as Jesus said in Matthew 25:36. The Methodists’ ministry to the poor included regular visits to the sick, which included providing food, some medicine, and caring concern. This was not enough, however, to deal with the root of the health-care problems. We should remember that language such as “health care” is our term, and not a common part of the eighteenth century vocabulary. The reality certainly was there; the language was different.
In December of 1746 Wesley told the society he intended to establish a clinic for the poor. He began to dispense medicine and treat simple illness himself. Was he qualified to do this? He was certainly not a physician, though he had attended medical lectures before going to Georgia (in case there were no doctors there). He did get the advice of both a physician and a pharmacist and referred serious cases to medical specialists. Within a few months, he had helped some 300 people, all of them without payment.
Wesley could not continue that kind of work for very long without being overwhelmed. Fortunately, his example sparked free medical clinics both within and beyond the Methodist societies.
Two Levels of Health and Healing
Good health and medical care were religious issues for Wesley. So much so, that he often resorted to prayer as an instrument of healing. We tend to look on prayer for healing as a last resort, as in, “There is nothing left to do but pray.” Wesley would have said we begin with prayer and then apply medical remedies. Medical authorities today are beginning to recognize what Wesley knew almost three centuries ago—there is a connection between prayer and health. Doctors do not deal only with a symptom or a disease. They deal with a whole person, and that person’s emotional and spiritual health has a direct connection to her or his physical health.
So Wesley’s healing ministry was intimately connected with his concern for souls (clearly a religious issue!). In his Journal, he records many instances of healing in answer to prayer. In some cases, he learned that an individual’s concern for her or his sin had led to either emotional or physical breakdowns. In these cases, medical intervention was not enough. The wounded spirit had to be healed before the body could be healed. So an important part of Wesley’s approach to health was pastoral care. He listened carefully to what people had to say about their spiritual health, or lack of it, and worked with them to seek forgiveness and healing from God. In this, he was following the example of Jesus, who often forgave sins before attempting a physical healing.
On another level, Wesley was concerned for basic rules of health and simple remedies for illness. In 1747, he published a little book called Primitive Physic. This handbook for health became as indispensable for health care in his day as Dr. Spock’s book was for raising children in the late twentieth century. Primitive Physic went through numerous additions, and was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. In it, Wesley listed remedies for illnesses that had been handed down for generations.
He gave two or three remedies for each illness and suggested that if one did not work, try another. The book also gave simple rules for good health that are important in all times and places. They included clean fresh air, cleanliness and hygiene, exercise, adequate rest and sleep. He placed strong emphasis on exercise, advocating walking as the best exercise one could do. Primitive Physic was strong on healthcare basics. Because it was written for the poor, it focused on common household substances and natural means.
Wesley was as fascinated by electricity as Benjamin Franklin was, though he tended to use it in ways different from those of Franklin. Wesley somehow got his hands on an “electrifying apparatus,” which he used in healing. The machine is now on display in Wesley’s home near City Road Chapel in London. It is a small device, which could be packed into a hamper and carried on horseback. It is hard to see how it worked, just from looking at it, but it somehow passed a weak electrical current between two points. Wesley used it on himself to deal with the soreness after a fall from a horse. In fact, a weak electrical current could have helped relax stiff muscles and to give him relief. Not everyone, of course, was as thrilled with this machine as John himself. John was in a huff at one point when his brother Charles refused to be “electrified.” Whatever the medical value of the machine—and it seems to have been useful in relaxing sore muscles, if nothing else—it does show that Wesley was willing to use the most up-to-date scientific knowledge and technology in his healthcare ministry. Certainly Wesley’s attention to good habits kept him healthy until late in life when his body finally wore out.
What Would He Say To Us?
John Wesley would be thrilled to see the great hospitals of the United States He would stand in awe at the miracles of modern surgery, ranging from simple appendectomies to heart-lung transplants. He would rejoice at the emphasis on medical research, the elimination of smallpox and polio, the attempt to find a vaccine for AIDS, and so on. The state of medical knowledge and the art of healing in his day were so primitive by our standards that he would fairly dance for joy at the sight of all that can be done today.
But he would also have a lot of questions. Why, he might ask, with all this knowledge and equipment and medication at your disposal, are so many without care? Why do so many babies die? Why do some have health insurance and others do not? Where in all your healing do you make room for God to work? Do you care for the whole person, or just for the affliction?
Wesley would also remind us that the key questions about medical care are not economic, or even scientific. The key questions are always religious. What does it take to bring wholeness to persons who are ill? What stands in the way of that wholeness? To what does God call the church in the field of health care?
Questions for Reflection