ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE OF DISEASES 571 



A short time ago Prof. Sayce published a Carian inscription, 

 discovered in Egypt, engraved upon a bronze figure of a rat 

 reading " To the Rat Destroyer this rat (have I) consecrated." 

 The figurine bears also an Egyptian text saying, " To Atum the 

 great god giver of health and life." This identifies Atum with 

 Apollo Smyntheus, the anti-epidemic deity. 



In Egypt similar ideas were current connecting the Ichneu- 

 mon with such concepts of malevolence, and numerous models 

 of these creatures are found with other Egyptian antiquities all 

 over the Nile valley — more frequently in the Delta . But we have 

 not space to discuss the Egyptian part of the matter.' 



In the first book of Samuel the occurrence of plague is twice 

 directly attributed to the prevalence of mice in Philistia. 

 The Philistines — with whom we are now so much better ac- 

 quainted because of the publication of Prof. Macalister's book 

 about them — for a prophylactic accordingly dedicated offerings 

 in the shape of mice to their god Reseph- Apollo. 



This Reseph, in Phoenician, Cypriote, and other memorial 

 inscriptions, possessed all the attributes concerning maladies of 

 his Hellenic foster-brother, Apollo, and was also a Hittite and 

 Syrian deity. 



The votive mice were placed inside the Hebrew Ark of the 

 Covenant with models of the so-called (translated) Emerods. 

 Probably these were copies of the grievous boils of bubonic 

 plague, just as models of injuries were made and deposited 

 in the shrines of Asklepios. Complete confirmation of the 

 custom detailed in this ancient record was provided some years 

 ago by the discovery of silver votive mice models in a river on 

 the Syrian Coast, near Sidon. Moreover, Punic and Phoenician 

 monuments, as may be seen in the heliogravures of the Corpus 

 of Semitic inscriptions, have mice carved upon them. 



Just as the views of recent researchers as to the spread of 

 disease by rodents is found to be alluded to by the Old Testa- 

 ment and ancient authors, likewise is the potent part played 

 by flies and mosquitoes in the dissemination of contagion. 



When Ahaz was attacked by sudden illness the special place 

 he immediately addressed himself to, concerning a cure, was 

 Ekron, site of a shrine of Baal-Zebub, " The Lord of Flies "; 

 evidently because the king's malady was considered to be con- 

 nected with, if not caused by, flies or insects. 



We also possess, from other sources, ample corroborative 



