ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 6/ 
priest is in contravention of the view which has gen- 
erally been held upon this subject. Yet I think a lit- 
tle reflection will show that such is the fact, at least 
among savages. It is well known that the services of 
some one representing the physician are often a 
matter of the first necessity for the preservation of 
life, even among the lowest in the scale of intelligence, 
and for the relief of sickness or accidents to which the 
savage is equally liable with civilized man, and it is 
more than an hypothesis, it is alm.ost a certainty, that 
savagery was the original state of man. In present- 
ing this hypothesis of the origin of medicine and the 
medical profession I do not wish to be understood as 
denying that a religious sentiment is natural to man. 
But I believe that it, like other capabilities of our 
race, remains during the savage, and even the barba- 
rous, stages of society so nearly dormant as to exer- 
cise no appreciable influence over human action. 
The religious faculty, like that for language, letters, 
mathematics, music, the arts, and the usage of social 
life, depends upon development and education. In 
the study of the history of the human race we are 
constantly reminded that man is an animal. He has, 
by some authors, been aptly designated *^a fighting 
animal," possessing originally but few aims or desires 
beyond those of feeding, fighting, and sleeping. 
From what is known of the condition and habits of 
primitive and savage races, and from general reasoning, 
the following may be assumed as the probable de- 
velopment of h'uman wants and the origin and line of 
advancement in medicine and medical practice. 
Instinct is the first teacher. In some races of savages 
