: with a few pungent
arguments from his pulpit he scattered the enemy forever, and the
greatest battle of science against suffering was won. This victory was
won not less for religion. Wisely did those who raised the monument
at Boston to one of the discoverers of anaesthetics inscribe upon its
pedestal the words from our sacred text, "This also cometh forth from
the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in
working."(327)

(327) For the case of Eufame Macalyane, se Dalyell, Darker Superstitions
of Scotland, pp. 130, 133. For the contest of Simpson with Scotch
ecclesiatical authorities, see Duns, Life of Sir J. Y. Simpson, London,
1873, pp. 215-222, and 256-260.

XI. FINAL BREAKING AWAY OF THE THEOLOGICAL THEORY IN MEDICINE.

While this development of history was going on, the central idea on
which the whole theologic view rested--the idea of diseases as resulting
from the wrath of God or malice of Satan--was steadily weakened;
and, out of the many things which show this, one may be selected as
indicating the drift of thought among theologians themselves.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century the most eminent divines of
the American branch of the Anglican Church framed their Book of Common
Prayer. Abounding as it does in evidences of their wisdom and piety, few
things are more noteworthy than a change made in the exhortation to the
faithful to present themselves at the communion. While, in the old form
laid down in the English Prayer Book, the minister was required to warn
his flock not "to kindle God's wrath" or "provoke him to plague us with
divers diseases and sundry kinds of death," from the American form all
this and more of similar import in various services was left out.

Since that day progress in medical science has been rapid indeed, and at
no period more so than during the last half of the nineteenth century.

The theological view of disease has steadily faded, and the theological
hold upon medical education has been almost entirely relaxed. In three
great fields, especially, discoveries have been made which have done
much to disperse the atmosphere of miracle. First, there has come
knowledge regarding the relation between imagination and medicine,
which, though still defective, is of great importance. This relation has
been noted during the whole history of the science. When the soldiers
of the Prince of Orange, at the siege of Breda in 1625, were dying of
scur