United Methodis

m’s

Historic Mission

for Global Health

John Wesley’s Methodist Health Care Plan

• Visiting and caring for the sick was an important part of John Wesley’s ministry and theology.

• He was also interested in affordable, natural medicine. In 1741, he wrote Primitive Physick, which defines in alphabetical order various ailments and their specific treatments. The preface contains rules for healthy living.

• In the 1760 edition, he became one of the first to recommend electricity to treat certain illnesses.

• Wesley set up free dispensaries in London, Birmingham, Bristol, New Castle, etc., to treat the poor.

Methodism’s Global Health Concern Begins By Crossing the

Atlantic Ocean• Bishop Asbury wanted

an American version of Wesley’s Primitive Physick to suit the medical needs of the American climate.

• Asbury had Henry Wilkins, a noted Philadelphia physician, do the revision.

• Family Advisor continued to be published in various editions well into the 1880s.

Health Care Became A Vital Ministry

• Francis Asbury writes in his journal: “That I began this morning to read books on the ‘Practice of Physic’. I want to help the bodies of men.”

• Early leaders of the Methodist Movement in America continued Wesley’s injunction to care for the sick.

• Circuit riders often carried Family Advisor in their saddlebags to treat their hearers when needed.

Dispensing Health Care Begins To Change

• Early church papers printed Wesley-like remedies in regular “Health and Disease” columns.

• Around the 1830’s, the minister-physician tradition ends.

• Ministers either preached or practiced medicine.

• By the 1860s there are clear lines of demarcation between the two professions.

Wesley Treating a Patient

Newberry Center Clinic - Chicago

Victorian Global Missions Recover Early American Methodist’s

Healing Ministry• Waves of immigrants to

the U.S., African-American displacement after the Civil War and westward migration creates a need for social service organizations.

• Methodists respond through mission activities which include hospitals, homes for the elderly, schools and orphanages.

• The church develops training institutes and schools to provide specialists to meet these growing needs.

Angolan Student

Pacific Evangelical Home

New England Deaconess Hospital – Student

Nurse1954

Social And Legal Changes Impact Our Global Health

Mission• Physician censure laws in

the 1870s, use of anesthesia and antisepsis, vaccines, antitoxins, x-rays, along with clinical and laboratories by the 1890s drive the need for hospitals.

• Churches, including all our previous denominations, respond by building hospitals and clinics across the U.S. and around the world.Mary Johnston Hospital - Philippines

Scientific Medicine BecomesAvailable To The Faith Community

• Methodist Episcopal Hospital, Brooklyn, NY, the mother Methodist hospital, opens its doors in December 1887.

• Other hospitals quickly follow in Chicago (1888), Cincinnati (1889), Omaha (1891), Kansas City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia (1892), Washington D.C. (1894), Louisville (1895), Boston (1896), Spokane (1898) and Indianapolis (1899).

• The Evangelical Church opens Red Bird Hospital, Beverly, Kentucky in 1928.

Brooklyn Methodist Hospital – mid 20th century

Red Bird Hospital – circa 1950s

Women Respond ToThe Challenge As Well

• Household conveniences and gained experiences during the Civil War allow nurses, workers and single mothers to push for more freedom, especially in the medical field.

• Ministries in mission work provided an outlet for women both here and overseas for medical missionaries, and after 1888, ordained deaconess. Many went to the mission field as doctors, nurses, educators, and administrators.

Clara Swain Hospital, Bareilly, India

mid 20th century

Deaconesses Healing Ministries

• Several of the earliest hospitals were staffed by deaconess, a ready supply of low-cost nurses.

• Deaconess societies founded their own hospitals here and abroad with Christ Hospital, Cincinnati, being the “mother” hospital. It opened its doors in 1889.

• By 1924, the Methodist Episcopal Church had more than 200 deaconess in active health care service.

Deaconess Nursescirca 1950s

Montana Deaconess Hospital

Disabled Patient – circa 1965

Overseas Health Care Missions Often Opened The Way For Other

Ministries.• Korea is a case in point.• In the 1880s, liberal minded

Korea wanted modernization in order to liberate it from its political and economic situation.

• An 1882 treaty with the U.S. promised amity and commerce.

• An appeal for Christian missionaries is answered.

• Doctor William Scranton, along with Mary Scranton and Henry Appenzeller arrive in 1885.

• By 1886, Scranton opens Shibyungwon Hospital.

• The Scrantons evangelize through medicine.

Throat, Ear and Eye ClinicUnion Medical College, Seoul

Korean Assistants With Dispensary Case

Methodist Men’s Hospital, Pyongyang

Methodist Episcopal Church’s Woman’s Foreign Missionary

Society Enter Korea• In 1887, Miss Meta Howard,

MD, arrives and opens a women’s hospital in Seoul.

• King Kojong names it Po Kyu Nyo Kaon meaning House for Many Sick Women.

• Lillian Harris Hospital opens in 1893. Later it becomes the Hospital and Medical School, Ehwa University.

• Korea’s government leaders are impressed with the earnestness of these kinds of medical missions and lifts the ban on evangelism in 1887.

Korean Women’s Hospital and Patientscirca 1820s

Operation in Korean Hospital circa 1930s

Even Today Global Health Ministries Are Part of Our

DNA!• General Board of Global

Ministries defines global UMC health focus as follows:

• A dynamic state of well-being both for the person and society.

• Holistic wellness as physical, mental, spiritual, economic, political and social.

• Being in harmony with each other, natural environment and with God.

• Areas of current healing ministries include: congregational health, deaf ministries, disabilities, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, health supplies, HIV/AIDS, hospital revitalization, malaria, parish nursing and preventing abuse! Partial United Methodist News Release –

February 7, 2012