THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



MAY, 1891. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



XII. MIRACLES AND MEDICINE. 



By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL. D., L. H. D., 



EX-PBESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



PART I. 



"VTOTHING in the evolution of human thought appears more 

 -L^> inevitable than the idea of supernatural intervention in 

 producing and curing disease. The causes of disease are so intri- 

 cate that they are reached only after ages of scientific labor. In 

 those periods when man sees everywhere miracle and nowhere 

 law ; when he attributes all things which he can not understand 

 to a will like his own, he naturally ascribes his diseases either to 

 the wrath of a' good being or to the malice of an evil being. 



This idea underlies that connection of the priestly class with 

 the healing of diseases of which we have survivals among rude 

 tribes in all parts of the world, and which is seen in nearly every 

 ancient civilization especially in the powers over disease claimed 

 in Egypt by the priests of Osiris and Isis, in Greece by the priests 

 of iEsculapius, and in Judea by the priests and prophets of 

 Jahveh. 



In Egypt there is evidence reaching back to a very early period 

 that the sick were often regarded as afflicted or possessed by de- 

 mons ; the same belief comes constantly before us in both the great 

 religions of India, in those of China, and it is especially elabo- 

 rated in Persia. As to the Jews, the Old Testament, so precious 

 in showing the evolution of religious and moral truth among 

 men, attributes such diseases as the leprosy of Miriam and Uz- 

 ziah, the boils of Job, the dysentery of Jehoram, the withered 

 hand of Jeroboam, the fatal illness of Asa, and many other ills to 

 the wrath of God or the malice of Satan ; in the New Testament, 



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