A FRIEND of mine is a devout Moslem, and in addition, a prolific writer in so many fields, including fields not within what he delved into, and qualified in.

He has tried without success, to teach me into accepting that, Jesus Christ was a Prophet, like Jonas, (Yahya), or John was. He was not the son of God, nor God himself.

In Islam therefore, the Concept of the "Holy Trinity" is an anathema. It is the fundamental point of controversy between the two lovely Godly Religious. Indeed, the same friend has provoked, as well as encouraged me, to bring this topic to the open, as a provocation to discussion, for those who might stand here or there. Should I keep anybody? Let's keep it juicy.

THE BC YEARS

Since three thousand years BC, medicine has been practiced in what was then known as Asia Minor and now known as the Middle East but in bits and pieces. In Egypt, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, or let's say, The Nile delta. The Nile Basin, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates (present day Iraq), Cuneiform writing is supposed to have preceded Chinese writing, Ideograms, as in China, and dynastic Egypt, popularly known as Hieroglyphics. I have chosen to stay out of the "rope walk" as to which one was first.

Greek Physicians had come to Alexandria to practice and to teach in medicine the way Africans are in Europe and America, as well as the Middle East, (soon the far East, China), to spread knowledge and skills, a s well as put a few pennies in their pockets.

JESUS CHRIST

In quintessence, the argument holds that, Jesus Christ came to find the practice of medicine and joined in by healing through miracles. He did not create the art of healing de novo.

He did not perform any surgical procedures, even though he recommended surgery, as a good option, to save people from destruction. He recognized the pre-existing codes; for example, that when one was cured of leprosy, one was under obligation to present oneself to the authorities to be accepted as cured. He did not accept the popular belief that held the view, that diseases came as punishment to sins committed either by ancestors, or by oneself.

When asked whether the sick person had committed a sin, or his ancestors did, his answer was emphatically clear, neither. He applied "some stuff, mixed in sputum", into the eyes of a blind person, and he regained his sight instantly. The apostles, Peter with Paul said to the crippled beggar, "Silver and Gold have we not. But in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, get up and walk." And he did! It is said that, this act brought jubilation to the healed man, supposedly, more than he would have rejoiced, if he had gotten a silver coin instead.

CLINICAL EMBARASSMENT

The institution that trained me once had a young patient with a malignant tumor in the brain, which was usually associated with rapid down-hill course ending in death, in spite of all efforts, (irradiation, chemotherapy, -measures that have the ability to biologically melt bad tumours away).

Death would be quick in coming! The teenage boy had been bombarded with what was then known three decades ago. He was from "a good home", and doctors are not exempt from pleasantries that tend to emanate many a time from such surroundings.

Then, as a fall out, the treating physician, (in this case, a Surgeon) may be inclined to get more interested. It is natural, isn't it? So, the Consultant Surgeon one Saturday evening dialed the family's home and with a male voice at the other end, (a fully broken adult voice), the Consultant inquired, "Hello, Mr. Q. How are you? Is your sons still alive?" to which came the answer, "I am the son".

Not many people can digest more than one such embarrassment in one life-time, but the gentleman am talking about is one of the Most humourous human beings God managed to create, so with his gigantic talents as a jester, when he needed to act as one, he managed to have almost an hour o conversation with the family, and won a dinner appointment for a week later at the end of it all, at the best eatry in town.

The boy did not die along the usual pattern of the kind of disease that was unequivocally diagnosed with him. Nor would that be all.

TO DIE

People who wander away from the filed they have trained in, like I do, or my friend from the beginning does, may have come across a book entitled, 'Cancer Ward", in German, "Krebs-station".

It was penned by a world famous Russian Literary man, who is a Nobel Laureate in Literature. He was diagnosed with cancer of the large Bowel, (called colon in Anatomy) five decades ago.

He was sent to the cancer ward, on the Gulag Archipelago in the then Soviet Union, like many of his compatriots with similar diseases, TO DIE. He did not die, but rather it was on this Island that he managed to write a couple of his best novels that gained him world-fame.

The books were smuggled out of incarceration, by friends and intellectuals peddlers who had an interest in "the cake." This was a big cake, and out of anger, the Soviets, (that was the name of the country now called Russia), ostracized him, - taking away his citizenship. Punishing him beyond this was out of question, for he had become extremely world-famous.

After living in Switzerland, the USA and Canada in that order, he is now back in Russia, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, "still a dissident", but rich too. There is no evidence of disease in him now. As we did not have enough examples, a German Professor of Surgery lived four decades free of cancer, after he had been diagnosed of one. He died of something else. So, cancerous diseases can disappear after they may initially seem as though they have come to kill the host.

MEDICAL SCIENCE

Medical science understands now that, the body's immune system has a tremendous potential of cleansing the system of such diseases. Such spontaneous healings don't occur often, when talking of cancers, but they do occur. In the case of Jesus, he commandeered the healing, and it was instantaneous. Those emulating what He did in the instances recorded in the New Testament have been fighting an uphill battle.

There is, many a time a recommendation for sustained prayer by the "healers", which may run one of three courses: A spontaneous remission, like in the case of the Russian philosopher, Alexander S., or the German Ordinarius B., or our departmental episode.

The third option is the least gratifying, namely, death. Instances have been observed, where charlatans have claimed the power of "fast surgical healing hands", Forensic challenges have proven that blood from such surgical procedures have been of a different blood-type as the victim's.

JESUSAIC POTENTIALS

The late Bob Marley died in a Bavarian Clinic with claims to such 'Jesusaic potentials." Lilian Borg, the former British Olympic Gold Medalist, who died of cancer of the stomach, had a brush with Dr. Esel's Clinic in Bavaria, in the late sixties.