ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
73 
opment, too, I believe, that the priestly functions are 
first observed. As a class, the priest-physicians are ex- 
tremely self-reliant, and aspire to exercise the authority 
of prophets and lawgivers and to rule supreme. They 
assume also many of the functions of the physician, 
and at times wholly absorb his office, and are often 
successful in their efforts to gain control in the affairs 
of government. We find that the dual quality of priest 
and physician has prevailed in all stages of civilization 
and under every form of government, and has even 
continued down to our own time. 
However, there seem to have been at all times 
among barbarous tribes physicians who made no pre- 
tensions to priestly prerogatives or mysterious prac- 
tices, but who relied upon the use of remedial agents for 
the cure of disease. Medical science has already made 
much progress among a people whose physicians are 
able to determine something of the cause of disease 
and the organs of the body involved, and to select 
and administer remedies internally which are capable 
of giving relief or effecting cures. This period I shall 
denominate the third stage of medicine, and has its 
beginnings in agricultural and semi-civilized races, but 
in most cases antedates written records. It is evident 
to every reflecting person that the exhibition of a 
proper internal remed}/ for a disease requires a much 
more complicated process of reasoning, and a more 
accurate knowledge of the various organs of the body 
and the effects of medicines, than does the application 
of external remedies.* 
■^As corroborative of the views presented of the origin and antiquity 
of medicine, I will make a few brief references to its history among 
