HAUPT— TOBIT'S BLINDNESS AND SARA'S HYSTERIA. 85 



destroy him. Jesu.s rebuked the foul spirit, saying, I charge thee, 

 come out of him, and enter no more into him. When the spirit 

 came out of him, the boy was as one dead ; insomuch that many said, 

 He is dead. 



Epilepsy was called morbus dccmoniacus. The Sumerian name 

 for disease is entrance, ingress, invasion. Diseases were regarded 

 as due to the invasion of the body by evil spirits (JSOR i, 7). In 

 Sumerian incantations (ASKT 98, xxvii) we read, May the goddess 

 of the netherworld, the consort of Ninazu, set her face toward an- 

 other place. ]\Iay the evil Utuk go out and stand aside. May the 

 propitious genius, the propitious guardian angel establish themselves 

 in his body. — Even modern physicians believe in demoniacal posses- 

 sion. Sir Risdon Bennett, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., ex-President of the 

 Royal College of Physicians, says in his book, " The Diseases of the 

 Bible"- (London, 1896), p. 82: Whether there be in the present day 

 such a thing as demoniacal possession, in the sense in which it was 

 understood in the time of our Lord, we are not called upon to 

 enquire ; although it may be admitted that there is not a little in 

 the manifestations of many cases of lunacy that may well give rise 

 to the question whether Satanic agency has not some part therein. 

 Religious men of the most irreproachable character, and women of 

 unsullied purity of thought and habit, will use language, entertain 

 ideas, and manifest conduct altogether opposed to their character in 

 a sane state, and which become the source of the utmost pain and 

 distress of mind when restored to reason. — If they do these things 

 in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? 



We believe now that the pathogenic agents are certain bacteria 

 or protozoa which have gained entrance to the human body. A 

 contagious disease is an invasion of vegetable and animal parasites. 

 Some medical men call these micro-organisms in true Babylonian 

 style messengers of destruction and death, adding that the battle too 

 often ends in favor of the attacking enemy. Just as the Babylonian 

 priests tried to drive out the demons of disease, so our medical men 

 speak now of driving the comma bacillus out of rooms by means of 

 light and fresh air (JSOR i. 8). 



In the New Testament, epileptics are regarded as demoniacs. In 



