With the general scheme on which this work is carried on you are familiar from the Reports submitted in former years. At Ingwenya the dispensary is open daily and advice, medicines, etc., are given free to all Natives willing to avail themselves of the facilities offered. In the last year there was a large increase in the number of attendances, many people attend on more than one occasion, the total number of treatments given being close on three thousand.
A considerable number of people were treated at their own homes. This can only be considered a satisfactory method when the homes are near enough to enable frequent visits to be made, or when the intelligent co-operation of the patient or friends can be obtained. The number of people treated as in-patients was also greater than in previous years, being well over one hundred. It has been possible to accommodate this number because a small proportion only were bed cases. The average stay was three to four weeks and during this time an effort was made to reach them with the gospel message. Few of these are seen again as most of them come from long distances but it is to be hoped that the seed sown may fall on good ground.
Since January of this year there has been attached to the Mission a female Jeanes teacher. This is a Government appointment. Under the Jeanes system Native women are given a three years course in sick-nursing, hygiene, etc., and are then sent out into the Native Reserves usually under the supervision of some Mission. The teacher presently attached to us promises to be of great help to her own people. She helps in the dispensary as well as helping in the homes of the people where her training in nursing has been of great value. The cost of drugs, dressings, etc., for the year was £62, the cost of hospital upkeep, including food was £24. There was one death in the hospital.
It is now nearly seven years since medical work at Ingwenya was taken in hand, and it may be pertinent to inquire as to how far the object in view in undertaking a work of this nature has been attained? That object has been the salvation of souls. The cure, relief, and the prevention of human suffering is in itself a worthy end but it still remains true to-day, as at all times, that one thing is needful. The activities, educational, medical, etc., undertaken in connection with Missions to heathen and primitive peoples are not simply supplementary to the spiritual side, they are in a measure complementary and necessary. At the same time there is a danger that Missions may concentrate unduly on what may be termed temporal activities to the neglect of the spiritual, especially when they are subsidised by Government, a condition on which subsidies are received being a high standard of work done, demanding much of the time of Missions and Missionaries. The primary object of the medical work is to bring people into contact with the Mission and its teaching who otherwise might not make this contact. It might be thought that modern Medicine and Surgery would make an instant appeal to suffering humanity everywhere, and that the gratifying results in the cure and relief of suffering so often obtained would make a great impression on those directly benefited, and so make them more receptive to the message of God’s grace. A little reflection will convince us that such impressions are likely to be of a fleeting nature and to fail of the desired effect. It would appear that in this way we are to understand the effect of the mighty works of the Lord Himself in the case of many who benefited physically from them. Rather must we look to the cumulative effect of medical work viewed as an educational factor, an adjunct to the other activities of the Mission, as a part of a many sided Christian ministration, for the most abiding results. This will be the better understood when it is realised that much of the sickness here is due to the ignorance and carelessness of the sufferers themselves. The confidence is too confiding which expects one visit to Ingwenya to put an end to symptoms which have been present for months or even years, yet that is the confidence sometimes placed in us. Direct medical intervention can avail little where the root cause of the trouble is lack of proper food. The diet of the Natives is terribly monotonous. Maize meal and millet, the former especially, and of a kind particularly deficient in vitamins, is the staple diet. Cow’s milk and some herbs they may have for a part of the year but for quite six months all but a few are without green or fresh food of any kind. This tells not only on adults but indirectly on infants, for naturally a mother undernourished herself cannot give proper nourishment to her child. Many infants are brought up on a gruel of maize and water. The mortality among infants through causes which a few simple measures undertaken in the home would prevent, is very high. Matabeleland does not often smile upon the efforts of the husbandman. It must be remembered that it does not rain for six to nine months of the year, nevertheless hard labour and scientific principles diligently applied would go a long way towards providing a sufficiency and variety of nourishing and wholesome food. Unfortunately the Native has not yet learned to appreciate the dignity of labour, and generally speaking he is still wedded to his crude and inefficient methods of agriculture.
Sickness, even death itself, is regarded by the heathen as the result, not of natural causes which may be understood, but by the malign influence of persons and spirits. It is true that this attitude is rapidly changing for the better, but there remains a pathetic helplessness in the face of sickness. When a person is sick he gets sympathy, but rarely is it of a practical kind. There will be no making of his bed, no smoothing of his pillow, no dainty food to tempt the palate, not even an attempt to procure him a measure of peace and quietness, or relief from the flies which make rest impossible. The victim of pneumonia may be allowed to sit in the cold evening air, to cool himself, or to take a dip in the river for the same purpose. In these circumstances it is unlikely that medical directions will be closely attended to, or that the patient will receive the maximum benefit from treatment. It might be supposed that all might freely avail themselves of the benefits of medical treatment when these are available but Native custom (which is the unwritten law) may operate to deprive some sufferers of what we should regard as an elementary right. Such is the definitely inferior status of women in Native life that the permission of the husband must be obtained before the wife can seek the help she needs. Rarely indeed is this permission withheld yet one recalls pleading with a husband to have his wife sent to hospital only to be met with the argument that after the operation she would not “be able to work in the fields.” It will be seen that the medical work cannot confine itself simply to the physical ills of the moment, but that it links itself up with all the phases of Missionary activity in the war against ignorance and superstition.
In Matabeleland to-day the Natives are in contact with Europeans everywhere, in Missions, towns, farms, and on mines, while the “store” stocked with goods of European manufacture is to be found in the remotest district. The impact of the White Man’s civilization, with or without Christianity, upon that system of thought which has governed the Natives’ every action for hundreds of years is causing that system to disintegrate, but the Native’s mind is not therefore going to remain a blank, he is assimilating, with or without our knowledge or control, all that Western civilization presents to him. No one who has the best interests of the Native at heart can be content to see him an educated materialist, or sophisticated man of the world. It is at such a time as this that he should be given that true perspective in which to view the life which now is and that which is to come. That perspective can be given only by the all embracing gospel with its sympathetic, practical bearing on every aspect of the lives of men.
I commend to all readers of this Report the cause of our Foreign Mission. The need is great. The results are encouraging. There has been an enrichment of life for hundreds such as their fathers could not conceive of, while for many Natives the bondage of Satan’s kingdom has been broken for ever. Thousands have had their physical sufferings relieved or alleviated. It is an object worthy of your most fervent prayers, for when all has been done and said “it is the Spirit that quickeneth.” It is worthy of your financial help. Discouragements there are and sometimes bitter disappointments, but do not become weary in well doing. “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few: pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.”