GENERAL 



method had failed, then we may claim for the 

 profession of medicine such a seniority as belongs 

 to the first-born of twins. 



How completely this theory accords with the 

 facts of to-day I would perhaps do better only to 

 adumbrate. The priestly method, in cases of in 

 dividual illness or epidemic, is still admittedly con 

 ciliatory, even in the highest types of the high 

 est religion: supplication, penance, sacrifice being 

 offered to appease an anthropomorphic Deity 

 who is credited with anger, that extremely char 

 acteristic symptom of human weakness. And the 

 physician, true to his history, is still antagonistic. 

 It is true that the supernatural beings who were 

 supposed to trouble his predecessor s patients have 

 been hypostatized, usually taking bacillary or coc- 

 cal form; but antiseptic surgery and antitoxic 

 medicine are in strict accord with the primeval 

 principle which dictated the exhibition of foul- 

 smelling and obscene drugs in the &quot;good old days&quot; 

 of demonology. 



The section &quot;Professional Institutions&quot; occurs 

 in the third volume of the Principles of Sociology, 

 which costs the greater part of a sovereign, and of 

 which only one or two thousand copies have been 

 sold. 1 But it is well worth the while of every 

 medical man to look up this volume, not merely 

 because of the theoretical interest attached to this 

 description of the origin of his profession, nor be- 



1 In Great Britain. 

 16 231 



