PREHISTORIC SCIENCE 



All this, however, implies an appreciation of the fact 

 that man is subject to "natural" diseases, and that if 

 these diseases are not combated, death may result. 

 But it should be understood that the earliest man prob- 

 ably had no such conception as this. Throughout all 

 the ages of early development, what we call "natural" 

 disease and "natural " death meant the onslaught of a 

 tangible enemy. A study of this question leads us 

 to some very curious inferences. The more we look 

 into the matter the more the thought forces itself home 

 to us that the idea of natural death, as we now con- 

 ceive it, came to primitive man as a relatively late 

 scientific induction. This thought seems almost star- 

 tling, so axiomatic has the conception " man is mortal" 

 come to appear. Yet a study of the ideas of existing 

 savages, combined with our knowledge of the point of 

 view from which historical peoples regard disease, 

 make it more probable that the primitive conception 

 of human life did not include the idea of necessary 

 death. We are told that the Australian savage who 

 falls from a tree and breaks his neck is not regarded as 

 having met a natural death, but as having been the 

 victim of the magical practices of the " medicine-man" 

 of some neighboring tribe. Similarly, we shall find 

 that the Egyptian and the Babylonian of the early 

 historical period conceived illness as being almost in- 

 variably the result of the machinations of an enemy. 

 One need but recall the superstitious observances of 

 the Middle Ages, and the yet more recent belief in 

 witchcraft, to realize how generally disease has been 

 personified as a malicious agent invoked by an un- 

 friendly mind. Indeed, the phraseology of our pres- 



