New Zealand's Greatest Doctor:
Ulric Williams of Wanganui
A Surgeon who became a Naturopath
By Brenda Sampson
Uncommon Sense
It is generally accepted now that matter, divided into the smallest possible particles, can be still further broken down, by physicists, into molecules. For a long time molecules were supposed to be the ultimate pieces of matter. Then a method was devised of resolving the molecules into still more minute components called atoms. Finally, Sir Ernest Rutherford succeeded in splitting the atom, demonstrating that these atoms consist of nothing but positive and negative charges of electricity revolving round a neutral centre as separately as stars in the sky. Thus all matter whatever its form, is composed of nothing but electrical energy which is only another name for spiritual energy or spirit. And God is spirit.
The link between spirit and its material appearance is mind and thought. God, creative spirit, thinks his thoughts into manifestation. So, in degree do we.
Most people think we are human beings, with minds and souls. That we are here. (Where's here?) A few decades since Sir James Jeans, famous British physicist wrote: "We scientists know now there is nothing but mind." He might, more accurately have put it "there is nothing but God." We are our present degree of apprehension and expression of eternal, unchanging, divine Spirit.
We are wireless stations, continually, (albeit mostly unaware of the fact,) sending and receiving messages and impressions of all sorts. "Can'st thou send lightnings, that they may go and say to thee, here we are?" Jehovah asked Job. Indeed we can. Everyone does. And receive them, day and night; evil and good. We can tune into either. Or switch, as we all do, from one to the other. In the end, individuals, communities, nations, the world become the sum of our thoughts.
For example, in a city, or nation, evenly balanced between evil and good, a single individual transferring from a negative to a positive centre, might turn the scale. If there had been ten (possibly five, perhaps even two?) "just men" in Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities would not have been destroyed. Not doing heroic deeds. Just being there. Sobering thought!
One day on my rounds in my car, I suddenly thought: Mrs James. (They had been patients from time to time, but not for some time). I took no notice. Then I got her name, more urgently. Wondering whether it might, possibly, be a call, I turned out of my way, and rang the bell. Almost at once the door was snatched open by a frantic Mrs James, "Oh doctor, thank God you've come," she sobbed, "It's Pat; she's desperately ill; I couldn't leave her to get help; I didn't know what to do." "I know," I said, "I got your message."
Examining the small Pat, there wasn't anything dangerously wrong. But to an anxious mother, bred, born and brought up in fear, and knowing less than nothing about anything, a convulsion can be a devastating experience. Seldom very dangerous really. With Pat presently relaxed, Mrs James wanted to know, "How did you get my message?" "E.S.P.", I smiled. (Extra Sensory Perception). Though still mystified, Mrs James was reassured. All she needed was a little knowledge, such as all young marrieds should have been taught at school.
Early one evening, a phone call from Auckland: "That you Doctor? Gray here, John Gray. You don't know me, but I've heard about you. It's my boy. He's two. He's just been sent home from hospital. He's dying of leukaemia. They say they can do no more; and as he has only a short time to live I may as well have him home."
Oh help, I thought, groping round in my mind for something to say; total stranger; long distance phone barely audible . . . then I had an idea: "Mum" Dowsett lived in Auckland. She had a Home of Healing, "Elim" in Remuera. She was a woman who used prayer, often to great effect. I advised Mr Gray to call and see her. He did, promptly. But for some reason Mum didn't like the case, and turned him down. After all, people using unorthodox methods have to be mighty careful what they take on. Should even their most impossible case fail to make the grade, it's look out!
Half past nine next morning, a ring at my door. John Gray! His heavy lorry (he was a carrier) being unsuitable for a long drive, he had borrowed a car and driven all night. Powerfully built, nice open face. "I'm not going to just let the kid die," he said, "but I want your help."
Then I remembered, "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." Thus the centurion. He hadn't seen such faith, no not in Israel, observed our Lord. So He spoke the word.
That's the sort of faith, John Gray had. So I spoke the word. "Your son will recover," I promised, "and when he is well you will look back and recall that the turning point came at ten this morning." But the more batteries in circuit the greater the power. So I asked John to go back to Mrs Dowsett. I would ring her meanwhile. Knowing now where she stood, Mum was ready when he called and went with him to his home in Brown's Bay.
Poor little boy - pale as a ghost, masses of swollen glands, unable to eat or drink, and fighting for breath. Mum wasted no time. Full of compassion and faith; she laid her hands on him, and silently prayed.
Next morning the glandular swellings had gone. He was even able to take a little nourishment. He never looked back. Months later, John took him to the hospital to show them. Five doctors saw him. Three were cynical, and talked of remissions, and inevitable recurrence, but two were sympathetic. "There's something here we don't understand," they acknowledged.
Wondering what could have caused the leukaemia, before Mr Gray took off for home, I asked how long his son had been ill. "Never been ill," he told me, "went down suddenly." "Must have been poisoned," I concluded. "No," John maintained, "hadn't been anything unusual. Oh," he recalled presently, "the doctor did give him some stuff when he had worms. That was just before he got sick." "What was the name of the stuff?" I enquired. "Don't remember the name, something like Sunt or Sant or . . ."Not Santonin to children with worms!" Indeed they did, and when some child dies, or goes blind, or paralysed, they never connect cause with effect. "The patient must have picked up a germ," parents are told.
Santonin is a known blood poison. But so are many of the "medicines" prescribed today. Thalidomide, for example, sleeping pills, A.P.C.'s, phenobarbs, prescribed and consumed by the shipload, yet taken for as short a period as two weeks may cause a fatal anaemia or drive people mad. Every year, millions of dollars for poisonous chemicals; 6000 listed in the Health Department's recent catalogue of free or partly free drugs. Thousands more not free. Hundreds of new ones every year. Those who prescribe them know nothing of their composition, and little of possibly deadly effects, immediate or remote. Desperate in their helplessness doctors prescribe them on the say-so of travelling agents even more ignorant, but dressed to look the part, and coached in a line of glib sales talk. The public has become a race of brain washed drug addicts, with doctors acting as unpaid salesmen for gigantic drug combines. Their victims pay the salesmen. And neither salesmen nor victims will listen.
