INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON H1PPOPATHOLOGY. 753 
some centre of development, still circumscribed to a definite 
area, the other entirely independent of any accident, origina¬ 
ting from a specific previously existing entity or poison 
and propagating itself indefinitely in obedience to fixed and 
invariable laws. 
Although the early progenitors of our race may not have 
recognised these things as we now claim to have distin¬ 
guished them, they were not altogether ignorant of certain 
great and general influences which seemed to operate in the 
production of disease, and they were doubtless also busied 
in the application of such means as their experience and 
observation indicated were best suited to meet them. 
We see, too, how often they, like ourselves, were puzzled 
by the mysterious movements of disease, and the ready 
method they had of finding an explanation of all by the 
assumed immediate intervention of superior and spiritual 
agencies, as also how all their hygienic and therapeutic 
measures were moulded in accordance with this connection. 
Yes, gentlemen, this often-felt insufficiency of human in¬ 
tellect and means to cope with these malignant natural 
influences, and the disposition to look for an explanation 
of them in the direction of an agency which, although 
unseen, is yet felt to be very near and immensely above 
ourselves, is exceedingly persistent in its possession of 
humanity. 
Even in periods long separated from those to which we 
now refer, and extending down nearly if not altogether to 
our own, how ready do we find men to overlook the fact 
that wonderful disturbances in the ordinary course of nature, 
blight and destruction in the vegetable world, and the 
appearance of terrible plagues amongst men and animals, 
are but the natural expression of fixed and beautiful laws, 
the workings of which have been brought into operation 
rather by the acts of man himself than as the outpouring of 
the malignant spirit of any presiding agent. 
Sailing down the stream of time, feebly illuminated by 
what historic records we possess, you will in different coun¬ 
tries and amongst different peoples find the science and 
practice of medicine receiving a greater or less amount of 
attention. In Egypt and Chaldea it seems closely linked 
with the polity possessed and patronised by the people, and 
is inseparably connected with the ecclesiastical and religious 
element—-an element which in the early life of every people 
has ever been wielded by those in power for the manage¬ 
ment of the masses. The priests or sacerdotal functionaries 
were the only exponents, as they were the chief practitioners 
