d both men and cattle from enchantments; when bound in a piece
of scarlet flannel round the necks of the latter, it preserved them
from all diseases.

There seems to have been no independent school of Roman medicine. From
early times there was a very complicated system of superstitious
medicine, as a part of the religion, which is supposed to have been
borrowed from the Etruscans. This comprehended both the theory and
cure of disease. The Romans got along for centuries without doctors;
in fact, doctors were a Grecian importation, not made until about two
centuries before Christ.

[1] G. Maspero, _Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_,
chap. VII.

[2] E. Berdoe, "A Medical View of the Miracles at
Lourdes," _Nineteenth Century_, October, 1895.

CHAPTER III

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

"The Alchemist may doubt the shining gold
His crucible pours out,
But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood,
Hugs it to the last."

"Death is the cure of all diseases. There is no _catholicon_
or universal remedy I know, but this, which though nauseous
to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar, and
a pleasant potion of immortality."--BROWNE.

"I'll tell you what now of the Devil:
He's no such horrid creature; cloven-footed,
Black, saucer-ey'd, his nostrils breathing fire,
As these lying Christians make him."--MASSINGER.

"If the cure be wrought, what matters it to the happy
invalid ... whether the cure is wrought by the touch of
the Divine hand or the overpowering influence of a great
idea upon the nervous system? If our hunger be appeased,
it matters little whether it is by manna rained down
from heaven, or a wheaten loaf raised from the harvest
field. Miraculous water from the rock does not quench
the thirst better than that which bubbles from the
village spring."--BERDOE.

The advent of the Christian religion into the world, while purporting
to minister especially to the spiritual life, had a wide-reaching and
potent influence on the art of healing the body. We cannot sum up the
effect by saying that this influence was either wholly good or
bad--its relation to therapeutics was a mixed one. It can be
truthfully said that nothing has retarded the science of medicine
during the past two thousand years so much as the iron grip of
decadent orthodoxy, and, on the other hand, no power has caused men
and women so to sacr