PHYSICIANS AND PHILOSOPHERS. 619 



with the rise of the belief in witchcraft, medical science, using the term 

 in a very lcose sense, received a distinct check. What was the ad- 

 vantage of familiarizing one's self with the nature or usual progress 

 of a disease if its course was constantly liable to be interrupted by the 

 will of some malevolent being possessed of supernatural power ? What 

 was to be gained by administering remedies that might at any time 

 be rendered nugatory by the same demoniacal interference? Those 

 who embraced the new faith promulgated by Luther were in some re- 

 spects worse off than those who clung to the old religion. While 

 catholics and protestants alike believed in witches and other agents 

 of the devil, the former had also their saints and the virgin, to whom 

 they could appeal in time of temptation and distress and who were 

 rarely appealed to in vain. For the latter, Satan and his emissaries 

 were no less real; but he had given up his faith in the efficacy of the 

 intercession of the saints and the virgin. His only resource, there- 

 fore, was to protect himself as best he might by dealing mercilessly 

 with those who had anything to do with the black art. 



The late Herbert Spencer is said to have reached the conclusion 

 toward the close of his life that man is not a rational being. One can 

 hardly help subscribing to this creed when he learns the attitude of 

 the public toward medical practise. We can understand why there 

 should be a great deal of hazy thinking in matters of law and theology, 

 since they have to do with problems that are at best more or less abstract. 

 But why the public should willfully shut its eyes to practical benefits 

 in every-day matters, matters that so vitally concern its life and health, 

 is hard to understand. Yet it is no harder to understand than 

 why a stone will not of itself roll up hill. We can only realize this 

 mental asphyxiation in the face of overwhelming evidence. It is ex- 

 plicable only from the standpoint of the universal belief in the utter 

 powerlessness of man in the presence of the spirits that surround him 

 and dwell within him. Though the scriptures have much to say about 

 casting out devils, the belief in them is human rather than christian, 

 since it is found among all the peoples of the globe, except among that 

 small class who may be called rationalists; or who, if not themselves 

 entitled to this designation, have inherited a rationalistic creed; for 

 a rationalist is simply one who refuses to believe anything except on 

 such evidence as his reason approves. 



There are grounds for believing that Aristotle dissected human 

 bodies; at least on no other grounds can his correct information with 

 regard to certain points in anatomy be explained. But for prudential 

 reasons he did not deem it wise to make public how this knowledge 

 was obtained. Salerno seems to have been the first medical school 

 in Italy outside of Spain, that is, the earliest in charge of christians, 

 and the probability is that its origin has some connection with the Arab 



