ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 209 



however beautiful if may seem, which has not directly 

 descended from the darkest superstition. In a short 

 space it may be hard to convince the incredulous that 

 bathing was wholly unnatural to primitive man, but 

 they may, at least, admit that there is sufficient reason 

 for suspecting that, however necessary water might be 

 in the dawn of humanity, and perhaps because it was so 

 necessary, it was looked upon as highly dangerous. How 

 then did bathing and washing arise if this was the case ? 

 It is not straining logic to infer that both were the result 

 of the very power of water which was feared, for to the 

 untrained imagination the very things most to be dreaded, 

 if managed by a skilful wizard, become the most efficacious 

 aids to health or success in life. All members of the medical 

 profession still represent the great magical element in the 

 human mind as distinguished from the essentially religious, 

 and may be said to take somewhat similar views as regards 

 drugs as the early magician took with regard to the em- 

 ployment of dangerous natural agents or evil spirits. 

 Those who prescribe arsenic, prussic acid, and many 

 dangerous alkaloids, should certainly be able to understand 

 the attitude of the early magician or medicine man who, 

 having discovered the powers of a given spirit, or the 

 vehicle in which it inhered, proceeded to employ it in 

 definitely arranged doses of ritual. Among magicians 

 there were also such differences of opinion and practice 

 as are seen in modern medicine, for although bathing in 

 many parts of Europe is forbidden, or regarded as daring 

 on Midsummer Day, yet in certain places, especially in 

 Sweden, to bathe on the night between Midsummer Eve 

 and Midsummer Day is especially healthy and curative. 

 So some physicians uphold Nauhcim, others denounce 

 it and all its pretensions. It is certainly held in Sweden 

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