Page 109 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

88 coNSTrrurIoN APFRoVED
was consulting by mail, was a great proponent of what
was then a very new treatment-"the cold sheets."
Brother Ryken knew something about the method,
but he asked for details: "Is it advisable to wrap him
in damp cloths? How long must he be kept wrapped?
How do we do it? Must his feet be wrapped? Must he
eat and drink?"
Later he was to become very proficient when he
ordered the reatment for practically everybody at "Het
Walletje."
In consulting Doctor Van der Plancke at Courtrai,
Brother Ryken was practically cutting himself ofi from
the services of the Brugean doctors who clung to the
standard procedures of those days and which in retro-
spect make curious reading: "The local doctor diagnoses
the Brother's pain as rheumatism. He has applied six
bloodsuckers. Some were efiective. Then he put a
plast€r on him but the pain persisted. He wishes to
apply ten more bloodsuckers, but I did not consent,
for I was not too much impressed. I knew that this
was the opposite of your treatment. Seeing that the
illness persisted, I opposed it. Then the doctor diag-
nosed it as inflamation of the stomach. Today he wished
to bleed him but was able to obtain only a few drops
of blood. So he wished to return with a surgeon. What
he will do tomorrow, I do not know."
The young Brother did not recover. His "decline"
was the work of many months. At times he improved,
only to relapse. The Xaverian community had never
had a death, and this young Brother seemed destined to
be the first. Brother Ryken sufiered with the patient.
In the midst of his grief, he received an urgent call
from the Redemptorists at Saint Trond to whom he had
submitted his proposed Constitution. From these good
friends he found out when he answered their summons