of the old masters of medicine,
however, has shown that they used oil and wine not only internally but
externally. Hippocrates, for instance, has a number of recommendations
of this combination for wounds. It is rather interesting to realize
this, and especially the wine in addition to the oil, because wine
contains enough alcohol to be rather satisfactorily antiseptic. There
seems no doubt that wounds that had been bathed in wine and then had oil
poured over them would be likely to do better than those which were
treated in other ways. The wine would cleanse and at least inhibit
bacterial growth. The subsequent covering with oil would serve to
protect the wound to some degree from external contamination.

Sometimes there is an application of medical terms to something
extraneous from medicine that makes the phrase employed quite amusing.
For instance, when Luke wants to explain how they strengthened the
vessel in which they were to sail he describes the process by the term
which was used in medical Greek to mean the splinting of a part or at
least the binding of it up in such a way as to enable it to be used. The
word was quite a puzzle to the commentators until it was pointed out
that it was the familiar medical term, and then it was easy to
understand. Occasionally this use of a medical term gives a strikingly
accurate significance to Luke's diction. For instance, where other
evangelists talk of the Lord looking at a patient or turning to them,
Luke uses the expression that was technically employed for a physician's
examination of his patient, as if the Lord carefully looked over the
ailing people to see their physical needs, and then proceeded to cure
them. Manifestly in Luke's mind the most interesting phase of the Lord's
life was His exhibition of curative powers, and the Saviour was for him
the divine healer, the God physician of bodies as well as of souls.

There are many little incidents which he relates that emphasize this.
For instance, where St. Mark talks about the healing of the man with a
withered hand, St. Luke adds the characteristic medical note that it was
the right hand. When he tells of the cutting off of the ear of the
servant of the high priest in the Garden of Olives St. Luke takes the
story from St. Mark, but adds the information that would appeal to a
physician that it was the right ear. Moreover, though all four
evangelists record the cutting off of the ear, only St. Luke adds the
information