le
still subscribed to the theological doctrine of the origin of disease,
in common with the religions then in vogue, here the connection stopped.
All other creeds--not excepting Christianity--looked forward to a
theological doctrine of the cure of disease. With the Hebrew, disease
was looked upon as the result of some infraction on his part of some of
the laws, and the consequent expression of displeasure on the part of
the Deity. He was taught, however, that the observance of certain
ordinances were both conducive to health and to the prevention of
disease, and acceptable to God, as well as to rely upon his study and
skill to cure disease. This was equivalent to teaching them that
diseases arose from physical causes, and that physical means were to be
used to combat them. From this arose the practice of exposing the sick
in public places, that they might receive the benefit of the advice of
such who might have had experience in a like case. It is from their
religion that Hebraic medicine has received its foundation of
intelligent philosophy that carried it in its purity through all ages,
free from magic, superstition, and imposture. With other creeds and
religions, medicine, disease, as well as the physical phenomena
affecting nature, were believed to be the arbitrary expression of anger
of their gods, and that the cure of disease, or alterations in physical
phenomena, were to be as arbitrarily effected, regardless of the
existence or action of physical laws. It is to be regretted that one of
the sects which has sprung from the Hebraic creed, and which worships
the same God, has been unable to emancipate itself or its people from
the idea of an arbitrary theological doctrine of the origin and control
of disease. It is this creation of a narrow-minded theology of a
vaccilating, unintelligent, unphilosophical, and arbitrary God, who
would neither respect nor regard the laws of his own creation, that has
led the great body of physicians out of the modern churches. They do not
deny the existence of the Deity, but the god of their conception is a
higher and nobler god,--the Deity of Religio Medici.

When the prize for the best essay on "_the power, wisdom, and goodness
of God, as manifested in creation_"--a series of publications known as
the Bridgewater Treatises--has been nearly every other time won by
physicians, among whom we may mention Sir Charles Bell, Dr. John Kidd,
Dr. Peter M. Roget, and Dr. William Prout,--not o