ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 225 



offended by the alien contact. Such views are dietetically 

 valuable. In the same way the taboos concerning mourners 

 and the insistence on ritual washing are obviously whole- 

 some and scientific, as every bacteriologist would admit. 



The whole story of the gradual evolution of medical 

 theory and practice from magic and religion is one of un- 

 surpassed interest which might well engage the life and 

 energies of any student. To such it would soon seem clear 

 that magic in its best and worst senses still exists in 

 medicine. It has not been got rid of by the decay and 

 passage of the older theory of signatures. But, even if 

 drugs are still exhibited on the merest grounds of tradition, 

 the fine magical qualities of human influence and sug- 

 gestion are every day better recognized, and therefore no 

 physician need look with contempt on his spiritual an- 

 cestors or even on his savage colleagues in far-off countries. 

 It would be as wrong to do so as to scorn Hippocrates, 

 Aristotle, or Galen because they did not know what are 

 commonplaces to a first year's student. There is no 

 new method of discovery and no real increase in the powers 

 of logic. Those who seek truth are no more than an 

 army marching in the dark led by the dimmest sense of 

 orientation. When that is reached which seems an insuper- 

 able obstacle their battalions hurl themselves against it, 

 and if one man finds a weak spot and overcomes the diffi- 

 culty he becomes a leader and is presently called a genius. 

 Such geniuses whose names and graves were forgotten a 

 million years ago helped to bring man through great 

 darkness, but not to any resting-place. It should be con- 

 solatory to every worker to remember that, even if he 

 has not the great and happy fortune to light a new lamp 

 in the world, his very errors and failures assist his fellows 

 and all mankind to avoid like disasters in the time to come. 

 *5 



