an
aromatics! stronger than unguents together; thou cleanest the stomach
like scammony, the lungs like hyssop, thou purgest the head like
pyre-thrig!"[27]

From the end of the fifth century the exercise of the medical art was
almost exclusively appropriated by cloisters and monasteries, whose
occupants boldly vended the miraculous remedial properties of relics,
chrism, baptismal fluids, holy oil, rosy crosses, etc., as of
unquestioned virtue. In these early days living saints seem to have
rivalled dead ones in their power over diseases, but of these we shall
speak in a later chapter.

A renewed interest sprang up when pilgrims began to return from their
journeys to Palestine, bringing with them, as was natural, some
souvenirs of their sojourn. A most interesting quotation from Mackay
reveals the condition of these times. "The first pilgrims to the Holy
Land brought back to Europe thousands of apocryphal relics, in the
purchase of which they had expended all their store. The greatest
favorite was the wood of the true cross, which, like the oil of the
widow, never diminished. It is generally asserted, in the traditions
of the Romish Church, that the Empress Helen, the mother of
Constantine the Great, first discovered the veritable '_true cross_'
in her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Emperor Theodosius made a present
of the greater part of it to St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, by whom it
was studded with precious stones and deposited in the principal church
of that city. It was carried away by the Huns, by whom it was burnt,
after they had extracted the valuable jewels it contained. Fragments,
purporting to have been cut from it, were, in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, to be found in almost every church in Europe, and would, if
collected together in one place, have been almost sufficient to have
built a cathedral. Happy was the sinner who could get a sight of one
of them; happier he who possessed one! To obtain them the greatest
dangers were cheerfully braved. They were thought to preserve from all
evils and to cure the most inveterate diseases. Annual pilgrimages
were made to the shrines that contained them and considerable revenues
collected from the devotees.

"Next in renown were those precious relics, the tears of the Saviour.
By whom and in what manner they were preserved, the pilgrim did not
enquire. Their genuineness was vouched by the Christians of the Holy
Land, and that was sufficient. Tears of the Virgin M