pness and commonness of miracles of healing in antiquity,
see Sharpe, quoting St. Jerome, vol. ii, pp. 276, 277. As to the
influence of Chaldean ideas of magic and disease, see Lecky, History of
European Morals, vol. i, p. 404 and note. But, on the other hand, see
reference in Homer to diseases caused by a "demon." For the evolution of
medicine before and after Hippocrates, see Sprengel. For a good summing
up of the work of Hippocrates, see Baas, p. 201. For the necessary
passage of medicine in its early stages under priestly control, see
Cabanis, The Revolution of Medical Science, London, 1806, chap. ii. On
Jewish ideas regarding demons, and their relation to sickness, see Toy,
Judaism and Christianity, Boston, 1891, pp. 168 et seq. For avoidance
of dissections of human subjects even by Galen and his disciples, see
Maurice Albert, Les Medecins Grecs a Rome, Paris, 1894, chap. xi. For
Herophilus, Erasistratus, and the School of Alexandria, see Sprengel,
vol. i, pp. 433, 434 et seq.

But with the coming in of Christianity a great new chain of events
was set in motion which modified this development most profoundly. The
influence of Christianity on the healing art was twofold: there was
first a blessed impulse--the thought, aspiration, example, ideals, and
spirit of Jesus of Nazareth. This spirit, then poured into the world,
flowed down through the ages, promoting self-sacrifice for the sick
and wretched. Through all those succeeding centuries, even through the
rudest, hospitals and infirmaries sprang up along this blessed stream.
Of these were the Eastern establishments for the cure of the sick at
the earliest Christian periods, the Infirmary of Monte Cassino and the
Hotel-Dieu at Lyons in the sixth century, the Hotel-Dieu at Paris in the
seventh, and the myriad refuges for the sick and suffering which sprang
up in every part of Europe during the following centuries. Vitalized by
this stream, all medieval growths of mercy bloomed luxuriantly. To
say nothing of those at an earlier period, we have in the time of the
Crusades great charitable organizations like the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem, and thenceforward every means of bringing the spirit of Jesus
to help afflicted humanity. So, too, through all those ages we have
a succession of men and women devoting themselves to works of mercy,
culminating during modern times in saints like Vincent de Paul, Francke,
Howard, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, and Muhlenberg.