[385] Another symbol of this god was the thunderbolt in the form of a sickle, with which he slew the dragon of the deep.
[386] Chaldean Magic, p. 190.
[387] Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 139.
[388] Herodotus, who visited the country, states that the Babylonians “have no physicians; but when a man is ill they lay him in the public square and the passers-by come up to him; and if they ever had his disease themselves, or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence, without asking him what his ailment is” (i, 197). From this it would seem that Herodotus might rather have said that the Babylonians were all doctors, or presumed to be. However, it is thought that Jeremiah refers to the practice in Lamentations, i, 12, when he says: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” A similar plan was certainly practiced elsewhere than in Babylonia. Strabo says that the Egyptians resorted to it (xvi), and in St. Mark it is said that the people “laid the sick in the streets” (vi, 56) in order to be healed by Jesus as he passed along.
[389] Deuteronomy, xi, 18.
[390] Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 140.
[391] Was this gonorrhœa or diabetes? See Leviticus, xv.
[392] Ana.
[393] Hea.
[394] Chaldean Magic, p. 4.