Medical Missions
Bowen, Francis J.
MEDICAL MISSIONS By FRANCIS J. BOWEN UNDER the modest title, Pie XI et la Medicine au Service des Missions, the Abbe Ugo Bertini, of the Supreme Council for the Propagation of the Faith, has...
...The members observe, but without vows, the evangelical counsels...
...It is calculated there are 3,000,000 lepers in the world, of whom only 7,554 are attended to in sixty-seven Catholic establishments...
...Anna Dengel...
...The six weeks' course recently held at the Catholic University of Lille was attended by thirty-four missionaries belonging to eleven congregations, who all received diplomas before dispersing to their several stations in India, Canada, Morocco, the Ivory Coast, Sudan, Madagascar, China and Abyssinia...
...MEDICAL MISSIONS By FRANCIS J. BOWEN UNDER the modest title, Pie XI et la Medicine au Service des Missions, the Abbe Ugo Bertini, of the Supreme Council for the Propagation of the Faith, has published a remarkable little book on one of the most pressing problems of the day...
...The movement will grow under the fostering care of the Holy See, and the good that it will bring to the many millions to whom she ministers will be incalculable...
...And here, it must be admitted, the Protestant have an advantage over the Catholic missions...
...From the importance of the subject-matter it is deserving of the closest attention, and should be especially welcomed by the Catholic public of America, so well-known for its zeal for and generosity to the foreign missions...
...Fifteen doctors formed by the Institute are at work in many countries, and the course for sisters and doctors in 1927 was attended by 161 pupils...
...And these figures could be added to from many other sources...
...The movement is still in its infancy but gives encouraging signs of growing in strength and efficiency in the coming years, under the personal supervision and inspiring leadership of the Holy See...
...There are some 125,000 missionaries—fathers, brothers, sisters and helpers—at work in all parts of the vast mission fields of the Church...
...The lives of these missionaries are valuable, yet have they been constantly exposed to the rigors of deadly climates, to contagions and hardships, and the toll on them is considerable...
...It is already in a flourishing condition...
...that the Fathers must attend to it at stated hours, and that they must cultivate the simpler kinds of medical herbs in their mission gardens...
...The infant mortality of India is 300 in every 1,000 of the inhabitants, while in one year alone (1924) 21,032 of the population are said to have succumbed to the bites of snakes or wild animals...
...The great stimulant the movement needed was given by the Vatican Exhibition, and its inspiration is mainly due to the personal interest and direction of the Holy Father, who zealously watches over the well-being of the missions...
...Many of these pay by their service in the missions for the training at home they could not otherwise afford...
...From small and scattered beginnings a quarter of a century ago, the medical missions as we understand the term today —namely the provision of scientifically equipped hospitals with trained doctors and certified nurses—are now fully embarked on their career of mercy, and are destined to become a great and valuable auxiliary to the hard-worked missionary priest...
...Thus it is that the Church, ever alive to the changing needs of the times, like the good householder, brings out of her treasure new things and old for the service of suffering humanity...
...And all, or almost all, of the important mission stations of the Church have such dispensaries attached to them under the skilled and devoted care of missionary sisters...
...Subsidized heavily for three years by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, it is now in an independent position, equipped with all that is necessary in the way of scientific laboratories and accommodation for its students...
...To take one instance only, the constitutions of the White Fathers lay down the injunction that there must be a dispensary attached to each mission station...
...The Catholic Missionary Institute of Wurzburg, in Bavaria, was founded in 1923 to provide lay doctors, men and women, for the mission fields...
...Finally it has recently issued a simple but practical "medical and scientific breviary" for their guidance...
...The ravages made by the plague and other scourges in recent times have been appalling...
...It has become an imperative need to supply our mission fields with trained medical practitioners who are able to give their whole time in service to the cause...
...The depopulation of the French and Belgian Congo is a grave problem...
...The University still keeps in touch with them by answering their inquiries, providing medical supplies and issuing a little bulletin to keep them up to date with the latest developments of the science of medicine...
...and it is interesting to note the steps taken by most of the civilized countries of the world to supply the need...
...The Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries was founded at Washington, D. C, in 1925 by Dr...
...The modern missionary is thus in a better position than formerly to cope with the many diseases he will find in the course of his work, but it is obviously impossible for him in his busy life to render more than the most elementary help to the natives he ministers to...
...To enumerate the various measures taken in every country would occupy too much space...
...The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, for example, had in 1927, 315 establishments caring for no less than 2,272,229 sick...
...A diploma of medicine or nursing is necessary before admittance...
...The population of Uganda decreased in a few years from 6,500,000 souls to 2,300,000 as a result of the sleeping sickness...
...the good he is able to do to the ignorant natives to whom he ministers by attending to their ills, on the other...
...Nor are these missionaries lost sight of after their departure for labor in foreign fields...
...It has become increasingly recognized, especially since the Vatican Exhibition four years ago, where the remarkably efficient medical section attracted so much attention, that the missionary should, for his own sake as well as for those he serves, be endowed with at least some knowledge of medicine and the treatment of the more prevalent diseases of the mission fields...
...The society is under the protection of Our Lady, "Causa nostrae laetitia...
...There is the care of the missionary's own health, on the one hand...
...Yet the needs of the latter arising from ignorance, superstitious habits and the peculiar malignity of tropical diseases, continue to be urgent...
...When the Lyons Society of African Missions first settled in Sierra Leone, the entire community, with its founder, was wiped out in a fortnight...
...and it has been calculated that for the thirty years afterward, the span of life of its missionaries was, for the priests three years, for the sisters five years at the most, and that the oldest father on the west coast of Africa was not more than forty-five years old...
...In fact the Church, true to the example of her Divine Master and His injunctions to the apostles and disciples, has never ceased to do what has lain in her power to heal the physical wounds as well as the spiritual maladies of suffering mankind...
...But the advance in medical science and surgery, and the increased knowledge gained in recent years of tropical and other diseases, has made the need of highly certified doctors in the mission field, whether men or October 29, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 667 women, more manifest than formerly...
...They consecrate themselves by vow to serve the missions for a period of ten years, the ceremony of consecration taking place on the feast of the Epiphany...
...When we read that they possess 2,000 doctors to our twenty, with 858 hospitals to our 507, we can better understand how they are often able successfully to oppose our efforts to spread the truth...
...The case of this one congregation may have been exceptional, but it indicates the dangers the missionaries of the Church have so often to confront...
...Written with the clearness and precision we should expect from its distinguished author, it gives in brief space a very full and interesting review of the whole question of the medical requirements of the foreign missions of the Church...
...The question of medical missions resolves itself into two parts...
...And this is what the term "medical mission" properly means...
...It has recently undertaken the care of the hospital at Rawalpindi in northern India, and among its other activities has the publication of its own review, the Medical Missionary...
...a large number in itself, though all too small for the magnitude of its task...
...The need of hospitals and other scientific establishments, staffed by expert doctors and certified nurses, need not therefore be emphasized...
...This is true in regard to one aspect of the question only—the supply of duly certified medical practitioners and nurses...
...but two, which are of special interest and importance, may be described...
...The question is the more important because the Catholic Church has often been reproached with neglect of the medical side of her missions, and her action unfavorably contrasted with that of the Protestant missions...
...The name of Pope Pius XI is held in benediction wherever the missionary is working—and that is in every quarter of the globe—to bring the blessings of Christianity and civilization to nations that are still held in the darkness of barbarism, superstition and paganism...
...As a result, series of lectures to newly ordained missionaries have been instituted, with marked success, in many of the Catholic universities of Europe, such as the Institut Catholique of Paris and Louvain...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 26
