My statements are not rashly made and baseless. I might almost ask in vain for a creed in which an absolute declaration of the life and death of mortals being entirely in the hands of supra-mundane powers is not made. For example, in the chapter of the “Book of Common Prayer,” on “the order for the visitation of the sick,” it is said: “Dearly beloved, know this, that Almighty God is the Lord of life and death, and of all things to them pertaining, as youth, strength, health, age, weakness, and sickness. Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness be, know you certainly that it is God’s visitation.” For relief, the means is indicated in this petition: “O Lord! look down from heaven, behold, visit, and relieve this thy servant.” There is no doubt about the meaning of these passages; and it is certain that the ideas contained in them are essentially those which were current among various peoples of remote antiquity. Of course, to one who sincerely entertains such ideas there can be no such thing as a science and art of medicine. But we know that they rarely or never stand in the way of a due resort to rational medical treatment. Truly, the human mind is, in many instances, “many-sided.”
What has just been said will indicate that it is very improbable that the so-called religious literature of early times fairly represents the state of medical practice. Assuredly, one could form no idea of the state of the healing art at present from the perusal of a manual of orthodox religious literature.
However, as I have intimated above, the prevalence of an ostensible belief in the cause and cure of diseases by supernatural powers does not stand in the way of the existence and practice of a more or less rational art of healing.
The Chaldean[404] looked to the gods for the removal of the evils which afflicted him; and he had his set earthly ways by which to bring about the result desired. Supplication, sacrifice, and the like were practiced, but material means were not entirely neglected. In the sacred book of the Parsis it is said: “If several healers offer themselves together, namely, one who heals with the knife, one who heals with herbs, and one who heals with the Holy Word, it is this one who will best drive away sickness from the body of the faithful.”[405] In another place the “Holy Word” is pronounced “the best healing of all remedies.”[406] Evidently, one might resort to other means, if he chose. And here I may remark, that in the practices of Æsculapius there was precisely the same threefold means of cure, as will be seen by referring to the chapter on the god.
It may be affirmed with confidence that no people in either ancient or modern times has relied exclusively on the good offices of supernatural powers for the cure of diseases. According to Catlin, the Indian doctors first prescribed “roots and herbs, of which they have a great variety of species; and when these have all failed, their last resort is to medicine.”[407] A reverse plan was the more common. In that interesting book, “Ecclesiasticus,” written by one well informed, and even at a time when medicine was far advanced, the sick man is curiously advised to pray and sacrifice to God first, and then to give place to the physician.[408] The old Hebrew conveys the idea that, when nothing else could be done, resort should be had to medical men. He thoughtfully remarks that “there is a time when thou must fall into their hands.”[409]
Now, as was to be expected, the Grecian god of medicine was viewed by some through a veil of superstition brought from the East. In connection with statues of him were things the meaning of which would be entirely unintelligible without a previous knowledge of ideas entertained in Assyria and other countries. One of these, the special theme of this chapter, is very interesting because of its historical connections. A study of it brings to light much exceedingly interesting information.
The pine- or cedar-cone, or, as some have spoken of it, the pine-apple, was figured in the hand of the cryselephantine statue of Æsculapius, made by Calamis for the temple at Sicyon, in Arcadia, as in representations of Mardux. What was the meaning of this peculiar object? Some have taken it to have been a phallic symbol. The presence of it on the thyrsus of Dionysus,[410] brought by him from the East, would seem to support that view. It has also been regarded as a flame.[411]
