self-seeking, must not indulge too freely in wine in order that she may
be able to take up her duties at night as well as by day, and shall
consider it her duty to keep the Church officials informed of all that
seems necessary."

The saving of deformed and ailing infants or children whose parents did
not care to have the trouble of rearing them, required the establishment
by the Christians of another set of institutions, Foundling Asylums and
Hospitals for Children. Until the coming of Christianity parents were
supposed to have the right of life and death over their children, and no
one questioned it. In every country in the world until the coming of
Christianity this had always been the case. Besides, there were
institutions for the care of the old. These are the classes of mankind
who are especially liable to suffer from disease, and the opportunity
to study human ailments in such institutions could scarcely help but
provide facilities for clinical observation such as had not existed
before. Unfortunately the work of Christianity was hampered, first by
the Roman persecutions, and then later by the invasion of the
barbarians, who had to be educated and lifted up to a higher plane of
civilization before they could be brought to appreciate the value of
medical science, much less contribute to its development.

Harnack, whose writings in the higher criticism of Scripture have
attracted so much attention in recent years, began his career in the
study of Christian antiquities with a monograph on Medical Features of
Early Christianity.[1] He mentions altogether some sixteen physicians
who reached distinction in the earliest days of Christianity. Some of
these were priests, some of them bishops, as Theodotos of Laodicea;
Eusebius, Bishop of Rome; Basilios, Bishop of Ancyra, and at least one,
Hierakas, was the founder of a religious order. The first Christian
physicians came mainly from Syria, as might be expected, for here the
old Greek medical traditions were active. Among them must be enumerated
Cosmas and Damian, physicians who were martyred in the persecution of
Diocletian, and who have been chosen as the patrons of the medical
profession. Justinian erected a famous church to them. It became the
scene of pilgrimages. Organizations of various kinds since, as the
College of St. Come, and medical societies, have been named after them.

Some idea of the interest of ecclesiastics in medical affairs may be
gathered from a l