Thought for the Day Healing - Three

Bog myrtle (Myrica gale) in December

This week, I have been remembering the words of the French surgeon, Ambroise Paré, ‘I dressed the wounds, but God healed them’.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, three hundred years after Parè’s time, there was a surgeon in Aberdeen who saw himself as a servant in God’s healing work – William Keith.

Keith used to deal with wounds of every kind – burns, broken bones etc. But he also did a series of major operations and recorded them in detail in his notes.

William Keith was aware of the challenges in achieving healing of the wounds he made on these poorly patients. They would commonly spend fifty days altogether in hospital: twenty-five days before the surgery, resting and being fed, and twenty-five days afterwards.

When Keith began his career, anaesthesia with ether and chloroform were not available, although they were on the horizon. The patients had to be in great distress before they would ask for surgery, and the surgeon needed to have quick and skilful hands and a calm spirit. A great challenge both to the patient and to the surgeon.

But William Keith was a man of strong faith.

In a report published in the Edinburgh Medical Journal, he wrote that since he believed that the issues of life and death were entirely in God’s hands, he never failed to pray for His help with every operation. Rising from his bended knees, he approached the operating table.

A good beginning to any important work