O MOST mighty and merciful God, in this time of grievous sickness, we flee unto thee for succour. Deliver us, we beseech thee, from our peril; give strength and skill to all those who minister to the sick; prosper the means made use of for their cure; and grant that, perceiving how frail and uncertain our life is, we may apply our hearts unto that heavenly wisdom which leadeth to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer is taken from the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. According to Massey Shepherd’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book (Oxford, 1944), p. 45, “This prayer is the substitute of the 1928 Revision Commission for the one on this subject in the 1789 Book. The latter form was in its turn a replacement of a prayer introduced at the end of the Litany in the 1552 Book as a consequence of the dread experience in England in 1551 of the ‘Sweating Sickness’ and of dearth. The final clause of the prayer is taken from Psalm xc, 12.”