CHAPTER XII.
THE PINE-CONE AS AN ATTRIBUTE OF ÆSCULAPIUS.
The fruitful results of studies in oriental history, industriously and intelligently pursued by able and learned men in recent times, are making more and more apparent the borrowed character of many features of the civilization of Greece and other western nations. Greek, Latin, German, Irish, and other languages of the Indo-European races, have been shown to be largely derived from Sanskrit, or a source similar to it, and the various mythologies have also been proved to be more or less evolutions.
Of late, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Accadio-Sumerians, but especially the last, who were, as is said in the Bible, both “a mighty” and “an ancient nation,”[399] have been accorded a greater influence than formerly on other peoples. There is little or no ground for doubt that the first forms of belief, as well as art, came from the East. It is certain that in the fertile region, about the lower waters of the Euphrates and Tigris, there was, at very early period, a remarkable unfoldment of intellectual, social, and other elements of progress, from the savage state. The ideas brought with them three thousand years or more before our era, to the rich plains southward of Mesopotamia, and gathered there by the early inhabitants of the hills of Elam and their kin, the earlier inhabitants of Sumer,[400] have been potent everywhere to the westward.
These Turanians, a dark-complexioned people, were conquered by the Semites settled in parts to the west of Babylonia, by whom their culture and civilization were appropriated.[401]
The Accadio-Sumerians undoubtedly gave direction and shape to the religions of Babylonia, Assyria, Phœnicia, and other countries, including Egypt. This means a great deal, for in the earlier stages of civilization the religion, such as it may be, is a matter of the greatest possible significance, both in itself and its influence on everything else. The language of the Accadio-Sumerians long served as the sacred one in Babylonia and Assyria,[402] and has been characterized by Mr. Sayce as “the Sanskrit of the Turanian family.”[403] In it are the important early cuneiform inscriptions, all the originals of which were written eighteen hundred years or so before our era.
The medical ideas of the Accadio-Sumerian were closely related to his religion; to him the cause and cure of disease were, to a great extent, in fact essentially, supernatural affairs. And thus, indeed, it has been among all early peoples. Nor is it probable that it will ever be entirely otherwise anywhere. The same feelings which prompted the dweller in Elam, or in the plains to the westward, to formulate his religion and philosophy are still experienced by humanity. Even the myth-formers are not all dead. The spirit of all the mythologies is yet alive. There are gods of fancy to-day, as there were when Ana and Hea and Bel were in the ascendant. And they are not very different. The nomen, the name, may vary much, but the numen, the thing, for the most part, does not.
The science of the nineteenth century has not cleared away from the minds of a large majority, in even the most highly civilized nations, the belief that health and sickness are largely subject to mysterious spiritual powers. They are matters of which the populace are still apt to entertain preposterous notions. Cullen well remarks somewhere that he had found even men with trained logical faculties, such as lawyers, satisfied with reasons of any kind, advanced to explain medical phenomena. And in truth the physician deals with matters not readily understood. In the very first paragraph of his book of books, has not Hippocrates himself said: “Experience is fallacious and judgment difficult”?
However, it is not to be denied that there are many who sincerely and firmly believe that both health and disease are entirely dependent on the will of spiritual powers. Doubtless every physician has seen instances of perfect resignation, on the death of even a near relative, brought about by the notion that the bereavement was “the will of God.” An innocent child, cut off by diphtheria, or scarlet fever, or some other pestilential disease, which exists only by tolerance, with a tearless mother bending over it, calm and full of the idea that it was the will of the Almighty to destroy it in the bud, as it were, is not an uncommon sight, and one which cannot fail to impress both deeply and sadly the intelligent observer. Impious and erroneous doctrine, to be sure; but, nevertheless, part and parcel of many, nay, most of the creeds of the day.