Hands That Could Have Done Anything
Paul Brand was one of the most gifted surgeons of the twentieth century. Trained at the University of London, he could have built a lucrative practice anywhere in the world. Instead, in 1946, he went to Vellore, India, to work with leprosy patients.
At the time, leprosy was considered a curse. Patients were untouchable in the most literal sense. Doctors wore gloves and maintained distance. Families abandoned their own children at the gates of colonies.
Brand did something radical: he touched them. With bare hands.
What His Hands Discovered
Brand made a medical breakthrough that changed how the world understood leprosy. He proved that the disease did not cause flesh to rot and fall off, as everyone believed. It destroyed nerve endings, which meant patients could not feel pain. They injured themselves unknowingly -- burns, cuts, infections -- and the secondary damage caused the disfigurement.
This discovery meant leprosy was treatable. Patients could be taught to protect the parts of their bodies they could no longer feel. Brand developed reconstructive surgeries that gave people back the use of their hands.
But Brand said the surgery was secondary. The real healing happened when someone touched a person nobody else would go near. "The most precious thing a human being can give another," Brand wrote, "is the gift of touch."
A Theology of Pain
Later, Brand co-authored The Gift of Pain with Philip Yancey, arguing that pain -- far from being God's punishment -- was a gift designed to protect us. His decades of service among people who could not feel pain convinced him that suffering had purpose.
What This Means for You
Sometimes the most powerful act of faith is the simplest: reaching out your hand when everyone else pulls back. Brand spent his life proving that touch heals more than surgery. The willingness to be present with people in their suffering is itself an encounter with the divine.