34 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



Itnmuivity 



How Nature Protects Her Subjects Against Bacterial 



Inljasion*'^ 



By J, Edgar T>avey, M,D, 



Fkbruary 8, 1906. 



"No people exists without medical views and regulations of 

 some kind, and medical efforts and conceptions, though only under 

 the form of rude superstition and belief in witchcraft, belong 

 among the earliest manifestations of the infancj' of human civilza- 

 tion. Indeed, it may be said that medical defence against disease 

 and death is a fundamental characteristic of man, even in primeval 

 periods, and one which distinguishes him from all other beings. 

 Medicine in the early history of man was regarded partly, if not 

 entirely, as a kind of religion, and its practice was a religious occu- 

 pation, while its results were the work of God and man. Among 

 all nations diseases were considered originally visitations or pun- 

 ishments from some God or other who must be propitiated and 

 called upon for aid or cure." 



I,et us briefly follow the advance of medical thought from the 

 earliest times of which we have record. 



Thot, an Kgyptian god living four to five thousand B.C., was 

 the author of the oldest medical work, containing prescriptions for 

 all parts of the human body. Any deviation from these by a phy- 

 sician was sacrilege, and punishable by death. He showed a 

 knowledge of anatomy, pathology and dentistry (artificial teeth 

 having been found in mummies). 



Much of medical superstition was derived from the Babylon- 

 ians and Assyrians. 



Among the J6ws, disease was a punishment by Jehovah for 

 the breaking of commandments. After contact with the Chal- 



*I am much indebted to Baas' History of Medicine and to the Journal of the American 

 Medical Association for the matter contained in this article.—/. E. D, 



