[30] A Hindoo Scripture whose name signifies knowledge.—Max Muller.
[31] Isis Unveiled, I, 354.
[32] Of which the tricks of Halloween may be a memento.
[33] Anacalypsis, Vol. I. p. 35.
[34] Bacchus was not originally the god of wine, but signified books. Instruction of old, when learning was a secret science, was given by means of leaves. “Bacchus Sabiesa” really signified “book wise” or learned, and the midsummer day festival was celebrated in honor of learning. In the Anacalypsis Higgins says: “From Celland I learn that in Celtic, Sab means wise, whence Saba and Sabasius, no doubt wise in the stars. From this comes the Sabbath day, or day dedicated to wisdom, and the Sabbat, a species of French masonry, an account of which may be seen in Dulare’s History of Paris. Sunday was the day of instruction of the Druids, whence it was called Sabs.—Ibid, I. 716.
[35] From the preachment of the Sabs, or Sages, or wise Segent Sarcedos.—Ibid, I, 716.
[36] The only physician of the people for a thousand years was the witch. The emperors, kings, popes and richer barons had indeed the doctors of Salermo, then Moors and Jews, but the bulk of the people in every state; the world, it might as well be called, consulted none but the Sages or wise women. Michelet—La Sorciere.
[37] I make no doubt that his (Paracelsus) admirable and masterly work on the Diseases of Women, the first written on this theme, so large, so deep, so tender, came forth from his special experience of those women to whom others went for aid, the witches, who acted as midwives, for never in those days was a male physician admitted to the women.—Ibid.
[38] Within the past fifty years the death rate in childbirth was forty in a thousand, an enormous mortality, and although the advances in medical knowledge have somewhat lessened the rate, more women still lose their lives during childbirth than soldiers in battle.
[39] In childbirth a motherly hand instilled the gentle poison, casting the mother herself into a sleep, and soothing the infant’s passage, after the manner of modern chloroform, into the world.—Michelet.