saint or a relic of a saint to cure nearly every
ill that flesh is heir to. St. Apollonia was invoked against toothache;
St. Avertin against lunacy; St. Benedict against stone; St. Clara
against sore eyes; St. Herbert in hydrophobia; St. John in epilepsy; St.
Maur in gout; St. Pernel in ague; St. Genevieve in fever; St. Sebastian
in plague; St. Ottila for diseases of the head; St. Blazius for the
neck; St. Laurence and St. Erasmus for the body; St. Rochus and St. John
for diseases of the legs and feet. St. Margaret was invoked for diseases
of children and the dangers of childbirth.

What the influence of Christ's life on earth on the medical art of His
time was is a difficult question. It must be remembered that He came to
save the souls and not the bodies of men, not to rapidly alter social
conditions nor to teach science. The eternal life of man was _the_
subject of transcendent importance, and it is no doubt true that many of
the early Christians neglected their bodies for the cure of their souls.
As against this, the gospel of love taught that all men are brothers,
both bond and free, and this led to mutual help in physical suffering,
and to the foundation of charitable institutions. In the times of
persecution of the Christians many of them welcomed suffering and death
as the portal to eternal bliss.

It has been asserted that the _miraculous cures_ wrought by Christ for
His own purposes were an intimation to His followers to neglect the
ordinary means of natural cure, and that this placed a Christian doctor
in the position of having to abandon his calling. This is not so. To St.
Luke--a Christian physician and the writer of the third Gospel and the
Acts of the Apostles--the performance by Christ of miracles of healing
presented no difficulties, for he was the travelling medical adviser of
St. Paul, and accompanied him on three journeys, from Troas to Philippi,
from Philippi to Jerusalem, and from Caesarea to Rome (A.D. 62). St. Paul
wrote: "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble
which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above
strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life, but we had the
sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God, which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a
death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us."
St. Paul exercised faith, but also used the means of cure prescribed by
"