Medicine

Medicine (תּרוּפָה, teruphahh a medical powder, Eze 47:12; Sept. ὑγίεια, comp. θεραπεία of Re 22:2; Vulg. medicina; also the plur. רפֻאוֹת , rephuoth', medicaments, or remedies for wounds, Jer 30:13; Jer 46:11; "healed," Eze 30:21; but גֵּהָה ,gehah', in Pr 17:12, is properly the removal of the bandages from a sore, hence its healing; therefore render, " a joyful heart perfects a cure "). ''In the following article we endeavor as far as possible to treat the subject from the modern scientific point of view. SEE HEAL

I. Sources of Medical Science among the Hebrews.-

1. Natural. — Next to care for food, clothing, and shelter, the curing of hurts takes precedence even among savage nations. At a later period comes the treatment of sickness; and recognition of states of disease, and these mark a nascent civilization. Internal diseases, and all for which an obvious cause cannot be assigned, are in the most early period viewed as the visitation of God, or as the act of some malignant power, human — as the evil eye or else superhuman, and to be dealt with by sorcery, or some other occult supposed agency. The Indian notion is that all diseases are the work of an evil spirit (Sprengel, Gesch. der Arzeneikunde, 2:48). But among a civilized race the pre-eminence of the medical art is confessed in proportion to the increased value set on human life, and the vastly greater amount of comfort and enjoyment of which civilized man is capable.

⇒Bible concordance for MEDICINE.

2. Egyptian. — It would be strange if their close connection historically with Egypt had not imbued the Israelites with a strong appreciation of the value of this art, and with some considerable degree of medical culture. From the most ancient testimonies, sacred and secular, Egypt, from whatever cause, though perhaps from necessity, was foremost among the nations in this most human of studies purely physical. Again, as the active intelligence of Greece flowed in upon her, and mingled with the immense store of pathological records which must have accumulated under the system described by Herodotus, Egypt, especially Alexandria, became the medical repertory and museum of the world. Thither all that was best worth preserving amid earlier civilizations, whether her own or foreign, had been attracted, and medicine and surgery flourished amid political decadence and artistic decline. The attempt has been made 'by a French writer (Renouard, Histoire de' Medicine depuis son Origine, etc.) to arrange in periods the growth of the medical art as follows

1st. The Primitive or Instinctive Period, lasting from the earliest recorded treatment to the fall of Troy.

⇒Definition of medicine

2dly. The Sacred or Mystic Period, lasting till the dispersion of the Pythagorean Society, BC. 500.

3dly. The Philosophical Period, closing with the foundation of the Alexandrian Library, BC. 320.

4thly. The Anatomical Period, which continued till the death of Galen, AD. 200.

But these artificial lines do not strictly exhibit the truth of the matter. Egypt was the earliest home of medical and other skill for the region of the Mediterranean basin, and every Egyptian mummy of the more expensive and elaborate sort involved a process of anatomy. This gave opportunities. of inspecting a vast number of bodies, varying in every possible condition. Such opportunities were sure to be turned to account (Pliny, N. H. 19:5) by the more diligent among the faculty, for ' the physicians" embalmed (Ge 1; Ge 2). The intestines had a separate receptacle assigned them, or were restored to the body: through the ventral incision (Wilkinson, v. 468); and every such process which we can trace in the mummies discovered shows the most minute accuracy of manipulation. Notwithstanding these laborious efforts, we have no trace of any philosophical or rational system of Egyptian origin, and medicine in Egypt was a mere art or profession. Of science the Asclepiadae of Greece were the true originators. Hippocrates, who wrote a book on "Ancient Medicine," and who seems to have had many opportunities of access to foreign sources, gives no prominence to Egypt. It was no doubt owing to the repressive influences of her fixed institutions that this country did not attain to a vast and speedy proficiency in medical science, when post mortem examination was so general a rule instead of being a rare exception. Still it is impossible to believe that considerable advances in physiology could have failed to be made there from time to time, and similarly, though we cannot so well determine how far, in Assyria. Recent researches at Kuyunjik have given proof, it is said of the use of the-microscope in minute devices, and yielded up even specimens of magnifying lenses. A cone engraved with a table of cubes, so small as to be unintelligible without a lens, was brought home by Sir H.

Rawlinson, and is now in the British Museum. As to whether the invention was brought to bear on medical science, proof is wanting. Probably such science had not yet been pushed to the point at which the microscope becomes useful. Only those who have quick keen eyes for the nature world feel the want of such spectacles. The best guarantee for the advance of medical science is, after all, the interest which every human being has in it, and this is most strongly felt in large gregarious masses of population. Compared with the wild countries around them, at any rate, Egypt must have seemed incalculably advance. Hence the awe with which Homer's Greeks speak of her wealth, resources, and medical skill (II 9:3 1; Od. 4:229. See also Herod. 2:84, and 1:77). The simple heroes had reverence for the healing skill which extended only to wounds. There is hardly Any recognition of disease in Homer. There is sudden death, pestilence, and weary old age, but hardly any fixed morbid condition, save in a simile (Od. v. 395). See, however, a letter De rebus ex Homnero medicis, D. G. Wolf (Wittenberg, 1791). So likewise even the visit of Abraham, though prior to this period, found Egypt no doubt in advance of other countries. Representations of earl, Egyptian surgery apparently occur on some of the monuments of Beni-Hassan. Flint knives used for embalming have been recovered; the "Ethiopic stone" of Herodotus (2. 86; comp. Eze 4:17) was probably either black flint or agate SEE KNIFE, and those who have assisted at the opening of a mummy have noticed that the teeth exhibit a dentistry not inferior in execution to the work of the best modern experts. | This confirms the statement of Herodotus that every part of the body was studied by a distinct practitioner. Pliny (7. 57) asserts that the Egyptians claimed the invention of the healing art, and (26. 1) thinks them subject to many diseases. Their" many medicines" are mentioned (Jer 46:11). Many valuable drugs may be derived from the plants mentioned by Wilkinson (iv. 621). and the senna of the adjacent interior of Africa still excels all other. Athothmes II, king :of the country, is said to have written on the subject of anatomy. Hermes (who may perhaps be 'the same as Athothmes, intellect personified, only disguised as a deity instead of a legendary king), was said to have written six books on medicine, in which an entire chapter was devoted to diseases of the eye (Rawlinson's Herod. note to 2:84), and the first half of which related to anatomy. The various recipes known to have been beneficial were recorded, with their peculiar cases, in the memoirs of physic, inscribed among the laws, and deposited in the principal temples of the place (Wilkinson, 3:396, 397). The reputation of its practitioners in historical times was such that both Cyrus and Darius sent to Egypt for physicians or surgeons (Herod. 3:1, 129-132); and by one of the same country, no doubt, Cambyses's wound was tended, though not, perhaps, with much zeal for his recovery.

Of midwifery we have a distinct notice (Ex 1:15), and of women as its practitioners, which fact may also be verified from the sculptures (Rawlinson's note on Herod, 2:84). The sex of the practitioners is clear from the Hebrews grammatical forms. The names of two, Shiphrah and Puah are recorded. The treatment of new-born Hebrew infants is mentioned (Eze 16:4) as consisting in washing, salting, and swaddling-this last was not used in Egypt (Wilkinson). The physicians had salaries from the public treasury, and treated always according to established precedents, or deviated from these at their peril, in case of a fatal termination if, however, the patient died under accredited treatment, no blame was attached. They treated gratis patients when travelling or 'on military service. Most diseases were by them ascribed to indigestion and excessive eating (Diod. Sicul. 1:82), and when their science failed them magic was called in. On recovery it was also customary to suspend in a temple an exvoto, which was commonly a model of the part affected; and such offerings doubtless, as in. the Coan Temple of Esculapius, became valuable aids to the pathological student. The Egyptians who lived in the corn-growing region are said by Herodotus (ii. 77) to have been specially attentive to health. The practise of circumcision is traceable on monuments certainly anterior to the age of Joseph. Its antiquity is involved in obscurity, especially as all we know of the Egyptians makes it. unlikely that they would have borrowed such a practice, so late as the period of Abraham, from any mere sojourner among' them. Its beneficial effects in the temperature of Egypt and Syria have often been noticed, especially as a preservative of cleanliness, etc. The scrupulous attention paid to the dead was favorable to the health of. the living. Such powerful drugs as asphaltum, natron, resin, pure bitumen, and various, aromaticgums, suppressed or counteracted all noxious effluvia from the corpse; even the saw-dust of the floor, on which the body had been cleansed, was collected in small linen bags, which, to the number of twenty or thirty, were deposited in vases near the tomb (Wilkinson, v. 468, 469). For. the extent to which these practices were imitated among the Jews, SEE EMBALMING. At any rate, the uncleanness imputed to contact with a corpse was a powerful preservative against the inoculation of the livings frame with morbid -humors: But, to pursue to later times this merely general question, it appears (Pliny, N. H. 19:5) that the Ptolemies themselves practiced dissection, and that, at a period when Jewish intercourse with Egypt was complete and reciprocal, there existed in Alexandria a great deal for anatomical study. The only influence of importance which would tend to check the Jews from sharing this was the ceremonial law, the special reverence of Jewish feeling towards human remains, and the abhorrence of "uncleanness." Yet those Jews and there were, at all times since the Captivity, not a few, perhaps who tended to foreign laxity, and affected Greek. philosophy and. culture, would assuredly, as we shall have further occasion to notice that they in fact did, enlarge their anatomical knowledge from sources which repelled their stricter brethren, and the result would be apparent in the general elevated standard of that profession, even as practiced in Jerusalem. The diffusion of Christianity in the 3d and 4th centuries exercised a similar but more universal restraint on the dissecting-room; until anatomy as a pursuit became extinct, and, the notion of profaneness quelling everywhere such researches, surgical science became stagnant to a degree to which it had never previously sunk within the memory of human records.

3. Grecian.-In comparing the growth of medicine in the rest of the ancient world, the high rank of its practitioners — princes and heroes-settles at once the question as to the esteem in which it was held in the Homeric and preHomeric period. To descend to the historical, the story of Democedes at the court of Darius illustrates the practice of Greek surgery before the. period of Hippocrates anticipating, in its gentler waiting upon nature, as compared (Herod. 3:130) with that of the Persians and Egyptians, the methods, and maxims of that father of physic, who wrote against the theories and speculations of the so-called Philosophical school, and was a true empiricist before that sect was formularized. The Dogmatic school was founded after his time by his disciples,. who departed from his eminently practical and inductive method. It recognized hidden causes of health and sickness arising from certain supposed principles or elements, out of which bodies were composed, and by virtue of which all their parts and members were tempered together and became sympathetic. Hippocrates has some curious remarks on the sympathy of men with climate, seasons, etc. He himself rejected supernatural accounts of disease, and especially demoniacal possession. He refers, but with no mystical sense, to numbers as furnishing a rule for cases. It is remarkable that he extols the discernment of Orientals above Westerns, and of Asiatics above Europeans, in medical diagnosis. The Empirical school, which arose in the 3d century BC., under the guidance of Acron of Agrigentum, Serapion of Alexandria, and Philinus of Cos, waited for the symptoms of every case, disregarding the rules of practice based on dogmatic principles. Amongits votaries was a Zachalias (perhaps Zacharias, and possibly a Jew) of Babylon, who (Pliny, N. H 37:10; comp. 36:10) dedicated a book on medicine to Mithridates the Great; its views were also supported by Heroddotus of Tarsus, a place which, next to Alexandria, became distinguished for its schools of philosophy and medicine; as also by a Jew named Theodas, or Theudas, of Laodicea (see Wunderbar, Biblisch- Talmudische Medicin, 1:25), but a student of Alexandria, and the last, or nearly so, of the empiricists whom its schools produced. The remarks of Theudas on the right method of observing, and the value of experience, and his book on medicine, now lost, in which he arranged his subject under the heads of indicatoria, curatoria, and salubris, earned him high reputation as a champion of empiricism against the reproaches of the dogmatists, though they were subsequently impugned by Galen and. Theodosius of Tripoli. His period was that from Titus to. Hadrian., The empiricists held that observation and the application of known remedies in one case to others presumed to be similar constitute the whole art of cultivating medicine. Though their views were narrow, and their information scanty when compared with some of the chiefs of the other sects, and although they rejected as useless and unattainable all knowledge of the causes and recondite nature of diseases, it is undeniable that, besides personal experience, they freely availed themselves of historical detail, and of a. strict analogy founded upon observation and the resemblance of phenomena" (Dr. Adams, Paul. AEgin. ed. Sydenham Soc.).

This school, however, was opposed by another, known as the Methodic, which had arisen under the leading of Themison, also of Laodicea, about the period of Pompey the Great. Asclepiades paved the way for the "method" in question, finding a theoretic basis in the corpuscular or atomic theory of physics which he borrowed from Heraclides of Pontus. He had passed some early years in Alexandria, and thence came to Rome shortly before Cicero's time (Quo nos medico amicoque usi sumus," Cicero, de Orat. 1:14).: He was a transitional link between the Dogmatic arid Empiric schools and this :later, or. Methodic (Sprengel, ut sup. pt. v. 16), that sought to rescue medicine from the bewildering mass of particulars into which empiricism had plunged it. He reduced diseases to: two classes, chronic arid acute, and endeavored likewise to simplify remedies. In the meanwhile, the most judicious of medical theories since Hippocrates, Celsus, of the Augustan period had reviewed medicine in the light which all these schools afforded, land, not professing any distinct teaching, but borrowing from all, may be viewed as eclectic. He translated Hippocrates largely verbatim; quoting in a less degree Asclepiades and others. Antonius Musa, whose "cold-water cure," after its successful trial on Augustus himself, became generally popular, seems to have had little of scientific basis, but by the usual method, or the usual accidents, became merely the fashionable practitioner of his day in Rome. Attalia, near Tarsus, furnished also, shortly after the period of Celsus, Athenaeus, the leader of the last of the schools of medicine which divided the ancient world, under the name of the "Pneumatic," holding the tenet "of an ethereal principle ῥ (πνεῦμα) residing in the microcosm, by means of which the mind performed the functions of the body." This is also traceable in Hippocrates, and was an established opinion of the Stoics. It was exemplified in the innate heat, θερμὴ ἔμφυτος (Aret. de Caus. et Sign. Morb. Chron. ii; 13), and the calidum innatum of modern physiologists, especially in the 17th century (Dr. Adams, Pref. Aretceus, ed. Sydelh. Soc.).

4. Effect of these Systems.-It is clear that all these schools may easily have contributed to form the medical opinions current at the period, of the N.T.; that the two earlier among them may have influenced rabbinical teaching on that subject at a much earlier period; and that, especially at the time of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, the Jewish people, whom he favored and protected, had an opportunity of largely gathering from the medical lore of the West. It was necessary, therefore, to pass in brief review the growth of the latter, and especially to note the points at which it intersects the medical progress of the Jews. Greek Asiatic medicine culminated in Galen, who was, however, still but a commentator on his Western predecessors, and who stands literally without rival, successor, or disciple of note, till the period when Greek learning was reawakened by the Arabian intellect. The Arabs, however, continued to build wholly upon Hippocrates and Galen, save in so far as their advance in chemical science improved their pharmacopoeia: this may be seen on reference to the works of Rhazes, AD. 930, and Haly Abbas. AD. 980. The first mention of small-pox is ascribed to Rhazes, who, however, quotes several earlier writers on the subject. Mohammed himself is said to have been versed in medicine, and to have compiled some aphorisms upon it; — and a herbalist literature was always extensively followed in the East from the days of Solomon downwards (Freind's History of Medicine, 2:5,:27). Galen himself belongs to the period of the Antonines, but he appears to have been acquainted with the writings of Moses, and to have travelled in quest of medical experience over Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, as well as Greece, and a large part of the West, and, in particular, to have visited the banks of the Jordan in quest of opobalsamum, and the coasts of the Dead Sea to obtain samples of bitumen. He also mentions Palestine as producing a watery wine, suitable for the drink of feeble patients.

II. Historical Notices.— Having thus described the external influences which, if any, were probably most potent in forming the medical practice of the Hebrews, we may trace next its internal growth. The cabalistic legends mix up the names of Shem and Heber in their fables about healing, and ascribe to those patriarchs a knowledge of simples and rare roots, with, of course, magic spells and occult powers, such as have clouded the history of medicine from the earliest times down to the 17th century.

1. In the Old Testament. — So to Abraham is ascribed a talisman, the touch of which healed all disease. We know that such simple surgical skill as the operation for circumcision implies was Abraham's; but severer operations than this are constantly required in the flock and herd, and those who watch carefully the habits of animals can hardly fail to amass some guiding principles applicable to man and beast alike. Beyond this, there was probably nothing but such ordinary obstetrical craft as has always been traditional among the women of rude tribes, that could be classed as medical lore in the family of the patriarch, until his sojourn brought him among the more cultivated Philistines and Egyptians. The only notices which Scripture affords in connection with the subject are' the cases of difficult midwifery in the successive households of Isaac, Jacob, and Judah (Ge 25:26; Ge 24:17; Ge 38:27), and so, later, in that of Phinehas 2Sa 4:12). :Doubts have been raised as to the possibility of twins being born, one holding the other's heel; but there does not seem to be any such limit to the operations of nature as an objection on that score would imply. After all it was perhaps only just such a relative position of the limbs of the infants at the. mere moment of birth as would suggest the "holding by the heel." The midwives, it seems, in case of twins, were called upon to distinguish the first-born, to whom important privileges appertained. The tying on of a thread or ribbon was an easy way of preventing mistake, and the assistant in the case of Tamar seized the earliest possible moment for doing it. "When the hand or foot of a living child protrudes, it is to be pushed up, and the head made to present" (Paul. AEgin. ed Sydenh. Soc. 1:648, Hippocr. quoted by Dr Adans). This probably the midwife did, at the same time marking him as first-born in virtue of being thus "presented" first. The precise meaning of the doubtful expression in Ge 38:27 and mag. is discussed by Wunderbar, ut sup. p. 50, in reference both to the children and to the mother. Of Rachel a Jewish commentator says, "Multis etiam ex itinere difficultatibus praegressis,viribusque post diu protractos dolores exhaustis, atonia uteri, forsan quidem hemorrhagia in pariendo mortua est" (ibid.). The traditional value ascribed to the mandrake, in regard to generative functions, relates to the same branch of natural medicine; but throughout this period there occurs no trace of any attempt to study, digest, and systematize the subject.

But, as Israel grew and multiplied in Egypt, they doubtless derived a large mental cultivation from their position until cruel policy turned it into bondage; even then Moses was rescued from the lot of his brethren, and became learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, including, of course, medicine and cognate sciences (Clem. Alex. i, p. 413), and those attainments, perhaps, became suggestive of future laws. Some practical skill in metallurgy is evident from Ex 32:20. But, if we admit Egyptian learning as an ingredient, we should also notice how far exalted above it is the standard of the whole Jewish legislative fabric, in its exemption from the blemishes of sorcery and juggling pretences. The priest, who had to pronounce on the cure, used no means to advance it, and the whole regulations prescribed exclude the notion of trafficking in popular superstition. We have no occult practices reserved in the hands of the sacred caste. It is God alone who doeth great things, working by the wand of Moses, or the brazen serpent; but the very mention of such instruments is such as to expel all pretence of mysterious virtues in the things themselves. Hence various allusions to God's "healing mercy," and the title "Jehovah that healeth" (Ex 15:26; Jer 17:14; Jer 30:17; Ps 103:3; Ps 147:3; Isa 30:26). Nor was the practice of physic a privilege of the' Jewish priesthood. Any one might practice it, and this publicity must have kept it pure. Nay, there was no scriptural bar to its practice by resident aliens. We read of "physicians," "healing," etc., Ex 21:19; 2Ki 8:29; :2Ch 16:12; Jer 8:22. At the same time the greater leisure of the Levites and their other advantages would make the the students of the nation, as a rule, in all science, and their constant residence in cities would give. them the opportunity, if carried out in fact, of a far wider field of observation.

The reign of peace in Solomon's days must have opened, especially with renewed. Egyptian intercourse new facilities for the study. He himself seems to have included in his favorite natural history some knowledge of the medicinal uses of the creatures. His works show him conversant with the motion of; remedial treatment (Pr 3:8; Pr 6:15; Pr 12:18,22; Pr 20:30; Pr 29:1; Ec 3:3); and one passage (Ec 12:3-4) indicates considerable knowledge of anatomy. His repute in magic is the universal theme of Eastern story. It has even been thought he had recourse to the shrine of Esculapius at Sidon, and enriched his resources by its records-or relics; but there is some doubt whether this temple was of such high antiquity. Solomon, however, we cannot doubt, would have turned to the account, not only of wealth but of knowledge, his peaceful reign, wide dominion, and wider renown, and would have sought to traffic in learning as well as in wheat and gold. To him the Talmudists ascribe all volume of cures" (ספר רפואות), of which they make frequent mention (Fabricius, Cod. Pseudep. V. T. p. 1043). Josephus (Ant. 8:2) mentions his knowledge of medicine, and the use of spells by him to expel daemons who cause sicknesses," which is continued among us," he adds, "to this time." The dealings of. various prophets with quasimedical agency cannot be' regarded as other than the mere accidental torn which their miraculous gifts took (1Ki 13:6; 1Ki 14:12; 1Ki 17:17; 2Ki 1:4; 2Ki 20:7; Isa 38:21). Jewish tradition has invested Elisha it would seem, with a function more largely medicinal than that of the other servants of God; but the scriptural evidence on the point is scanty, save 'that he appears to have known at once the proper means to apply to heal the waters, and temper the noxious pottage (2Ki 2:21; 2Ki 4:39-41). His healing the Shinammite's son has been discussed as a case of suspended animation and of animal magnetism applied to resuscitate it; but the narrative clearly implies that the death was real As regards the lepros, had the Jordan commonly possessed the healing power which Naaman's faith and obedience found in it, would there have been "many lepers in Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet," or in any other- days? Further, if our Lord's words (Lu 4:27) are to be taken literally, Elisha's reputation could not have; been founded on any succession of lepers healed.: The washing was a part of the enjoined illustration of the leper after his cure was complete; Naaman was to act as though clean, like the ten men that were lepers,"bidden to "go and show themselves to the priest" in either case it, Was "as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee." The sickness of Benhadad is certainly so described as to imply treachery on the part of Hazael (2Ki 8:15). Yet the observation of Bruce, upon a "cold- water cure" practiced among the! people near the Red Sea, has suggested a view somewhat different. The bed-clothes -are. soaked with cold water, and kept thoroughly wet, and the patient drinks cold water freely. But the crisis, it seems occurs on the third day, and not till the fifth is it there usual to apply this treatment. If the chamberlain, through 'carelessness,' ignorance, or treachery, precipitated the application, a fatal issue may have suddenly resulted. The "brazen serpent," once the means of healing, and worshipped idolatrously in Hezekiah's reign, is supposed to have acquired those honors under its Esculapian aspect. This notion is not inconsistent with the Scripture narrative, though not therein traceable. It is supposed that something in the "volume of cures," current under the authority of Solomon, may have conduced to the establishment 'Of these rites, and drawn away the popular homage, especially in prayers during sickness, or thanksgivings after recovery from Jehovah. The statement that king Asa (2Ch 16:12) "sought not to Jehovah but to the physicians," may seem to countenance the notion that a rivalry of actual worship, based on some medical fancies, had beer set up, and would so far support the Talmudical tradition.

The captivity of Babylon brought the Jews into contact with a new sphere of thought. Their chief men rose to thy highest honors, and an improved mental culture among a large section of the captives was no doubt the result which they imported on their return. Wunderbar regards the Babylonian captivity as parallel it its effects to the Egyptian bondage, and seems to think that the people would return debased from its influence. On the contrary, those whom subjection had made ignoble and unpatriotic would remain. If any returned it was a pledge that they were not so impaired; and, if not impaired, they would certainly be improved by the discipline they had undergone. He also thinks that sorcery had the largest share in any Babylonian or Persian system of medicine. This is assuming too much there were magicians in Egypt, but physicians also (see above)of high cultivation. Human nature has so great an interest in human life that only in the savage, rudimentary societies is its economy left thus involved in phantasms. The earliest steps of civilization include something of medicine. Of course 'superstitions' are found copiously involved in such medical tenets, but this is not equivalent to abandoning the study to a class of professed magicians. Thus in the Ueberreste de;- altbabylonischen Literatur, p. 123, by D. Chwolson, St. Petersb. 1859 (the value of which is not, however, yet ascertained), a writer on poisons claims to have a magic antidote, but declines stating what it is, as it is not his business to mention such things, and he only does so in cases where the charm is in connection with medical treatment and resembles it; the magicians, adds the same writer on another occasion, use a particular means of cure, but he declines to impart it, having a repugnance to witchcraft. So (p. 125-6) we find traces of charms introduced into Babylonian treatises on medical science, but apologetically; and as if against sounder knowledge. Similarly, the opinion of fatalism is not without its influence on medicine; but it is chiefly resorted to where, as often happens in pestilence, all known aid seems useless. We know, however, too little of the precise. state of medicine in Babylon, Susa; and the "cities of the Medes," to determine the direction in- which the impulse so derived would have led the exiles; but the confluence of streams of thought. from opposite sources, which impregnate each other, would surely produce a tendency to sift established practice and accepted axioms, to set up a new standard by which to try the current rules of art, and to determine new lines of inquiry for any eager spirits disposed to search for truth. Thus the visit of Democedes to the court of Darius, though it seems to be an isolated fact, points to a general opening of Oriental manners to Greek influence, which was not too late to leave its traces in some-perhaps of the contemporaries of Ezra. That great reformer, with the leaders of national thought gathered about him, could not fail to recognise medicine among the salutary measures which distinguished his epoch. Whatever advantages the Levites had possessed in earlier days were now speedily lost even as regards the study of the divine law, and much more therefore as regards that of medicine; into which competitors would crowd fin proportion to its broader and more obvious human. interest, and effectually demolish any narrowing barriers of established privilege, if such previously existed.

2. In the Interval between the Old and the New Testament.-It may be observed that the priests in their ministrations, who performed at all seasons of the year barefoot on stone pavement, and without perhaps any variation of dress to meet that of temperature, were peculiarly liable to sickness (Kall, De Morbis Sacerdotum, Hafn. 1745). Hence the permanent appointment of a Temple physician has been supposed by some, and a certain Ben-Ahijah is mentioned by Wunderbar as occurring in the Talmud in that capacity. But it rather appears as if such an officer's appointment were precarious, and varied with the demands of the ministrants.

The book of Ecclesiasticus shows the increased regard given to the distinct study of medicine by the repeated mention of physicians, etc., which it contains, and which, as probably belonging to the period of the Ptolemies, it might be expected to show. The wisdom of prevention is recognised in Ecclus. 18:19; perhaps also in 10:10. Rank and honor are said to be the portion of the physician, and his office to be from the Lord (38:1, 3, 12). The repeated allusions to sickness in 7:35; 30:17; 31:22; 37:30; 38:9, coupled with the former recognition of merit, have caused some to suppose that this author was himself a physician. If he was so, the power of mind and wide range of observation shown in his work would give a favorable impression of the standard of practitioners; if he was not, the great general popularity of the study and practice may be inferred from its thus becoming a common topic of general advice offered by a non-professional writer. In Wisd. 16:12, plaister is spoken of; anointing, as a means of healing, in Job 6:8.

3. In the New Testament. — Luke, "the beloved physician," who practiced at Antioch while the body was his care, could hardly have failed to be conversant with all the leading opinions current down to his own time. Situated between the great schools of Alexandria and Cilicia, within easy sea-transit of both, as well as of the Western homes of science, Antioch enjoyed a more central position than any great city of the ancient world, and in it accordingly all the streams of contemporary medical learning may have probably found a point of confluence. The medicine of the New Test. is not solely, nor even chiefly, Jewish medicine; and even if it were, it is clear that the more mankind became mixed by intercourse, the more medical opinion and practice must have ceased to be exclusive. The great number of Jews resident in Rome and Greece about the Christian aera, and the successive decrees by which their banishment from the former was proclaimed, must have imported, even into Palestine, whatever from the West was best worth knowing; and we may be as sure that it's medicine and surgery expanded under these influences as that, in the writings of the. Talmudists, such obligations would be unacknowledged. But, beyond 'this, the growth of large mercantile communities, such as existed in Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Ephesus. of itself involves a peculiar sanitary condition from the mass of human elements gathered to a focus under new or abnormal circumstances. Nor are the words in which an eloquent modern writer describes the course of this action less applicable to the case of an ancient than to that of a modern metropolis. Diseases once indigenous to a section of humanity, are slowly but surely creeping up to commercial centres, whence they will be rapidly propagated. One form of Asiatic leprosy is approaching the Levant from Arabia. The history of every disease which is communicated from man to man establishes this melancholy truth, that ultimately such maladies overleap all obstacles of climate, and demonstrate a solidarity in evil as well as in good among the brotherhood of nations" (Dr. Ferguson, Pref. Essay to Gooch on Diseases of Women, New Sydenham Society, London, 1859, p. xlvi)., In proportion as this "melancholy truth" is perceived would an intercommunication of medical science prevail also.

4. In Contemporary Heathen Writers. — The medicine and surgery referred to in the New Test., then, was probably not inferior to that commonly in demand among educated Asiatic Greeks, and must have been, as regards its basis Greek medicine, and not Jewish. Hence a standard Gentile medical writer, if any is to be found of that period, would best represent the profession to which the evangelist belonged. Without absolute certainty as to date, we seem to have such a writer in Areteus, commonly called "the Cappadocian," who wrote certainly after Nero's reign began, and probably flourished shortly before and after the decade in which Paul reached Rome and Jerusalem fell. If he were of Luke's age, it is striking that he should also be perhaps the only ancient medical authority. in favor of daemoniacal possession as a possible account of epilepsy. If his country be rightly indicated by his surname, we know that it gave him the means of intercourse with both the Jews and the Christians of the apostolic period (Ac 2:9; 1Pe 1:1). It is very likely that Tarsus, the nearest place of academic repute to that region, was the scene of, at any rate, the earlier studies of Areteeus, nor would any chronological difficulty prevent his having been a pupil in medicine there when Paul and also, perhaps, Barnabas Were, as is probable, pursuing their early studies in other subjects at the same spot. Aretseus, then, assuming the date above indicated, may be taken as expounding the medical practice of the Asiatic Greeks in the latter half of the first century. There is, however, much of strongly-marked individuality in his work, more especially in the minute verbal portraiture of disease. That of pulmonary consumption in particular, is traced with the careful description of an eye-witness, and represents with a curious exactness the curved nails, shrunken fingers, slender, sharpened nostrils, hollow, glazy eye, cadaverous look and hue; the waste of muscle and startling prominence of bones, the scapula standing 'off like the wing of a bird; as also the habit of body marking predisposition to the malady, the thin, veneer-like frames, the limbs like pinions, the prominent throat and shallow-chest, with a remark that moist and cold climates -are the haunts of it (Αρετ. φθίσεως). His work exhibits strong traits here and there of the 'Pneumatic school, as in his statement regarding lethargy, that it is frigidity implanted by nature; concerning elephantiasis even more emphatically, that it is a refrigeration of the innate heat, "or, rather, a congregation as it were one great winter of the system." The same views betray themselves in his statement regarding the blood, that it is the warming principle of all the parts; that diabetes is a sort of dropsy, both exhibiting the watery principle; and that the effect of white hellebore is as that of fire: "so that whatever fire does by burning, hellebore effects still more by penetrating inwardly." The last remark shows that he gave some scope to his imagination, which indeed we might illustrate from some of his pathological descriptions; e.g. that of elephantiasis, where the resemblance of the beast to the afflicted human being is wrought to a fanciful parallel. Allowing for such overstrained touches here and there, we may say that he generally avoids extravagant crotchets, and rests chiefly on wide observation, and on the common-sense which sobers theory and rationalizes facts. 'He hardly ever quotes an authority; and though much of what he states was taught before, it is dealt with as the common property of science, or as become sui juris through being proved by his own experience. The freedom with which he follows or rejects earlier opinions has occasioned him to be classed by some among the Eclectic school. His work is divided into-I, the causes and signs of (1) acute and (2) chronic diseases; and, II, the curative treatment of (1) acute and (2) chronic diseases. His boldness of treatment is exemplified in his. selection of the vein to be opened in a wide range of parts the arm, ankle, tongue, nose, etc. He first has a distinct mention of leeches, which Themison is said to have introduced; and in this respect his surgical resources appear to be in advance of Celsus. He was familiar with the operation for the stone in the bladder, and prescribes, as Celsus also does, the use of the catheter, where its insertion is not prevented by inflammation, then the incision into the neck of the bladder, nearly as in modern lithotomy. His views of the internal economy were a strange mixture of truth and error, and the disuse of anatomy was no doubt the reason why this was the weak point of his teaching. He held that the work of producing the blood pertained to the liver, "which is the root of the veins;" that the bile was distributed from the gall-bladder to the intestines; and, if this vesica became gorged, the bile was thrown back into the veins, and by them diffused over the system. He regarded the nerves as the source of sensation and motion; and had some notion of them as branching in pairs from the spine. Thus he has a curious statement as regards paralysis, that in the case of any sensational point below the head, e.g. from the membrane of the spinal marrow being affected injuriously, the parts on the right side will be paralyzed if the nerve towards the right side be hurt, and similarly, conversely, of the left side; but that if the head itself be so affected, the inverse law of consequence holds concerning the parts related, since each nerve passes over to the other side from that of its origin, decussating each other in the form of the letter X. The doctrine of the Pneuma, or ethereal principle existing in the microcosm by which the mind performs all the functions of the body, holds a more prominent position in the works of Aretaeus than in those of any of the other authorities (Dr. Adams's Preface to Aret. p. x, xi). He was aware that the nervous function of sensation was distinct from the motive power; that either might cease and the other continue. His pharmacopoeia is copious and reasonable, and the limits of the usefulness of this or that drug are laid down judiciously. He makes large use of wine, and prescribing the kind and the number of cyathi to be taken; and some words of his on stomach disorders (περὶ καρδιαλγίης ) forcibly recall those of Paul to Timothy (1Ti 5:23), and one might almost suppose them to have been suggested by the intenser spirituality of his Jewish or Christian patients. "Such disorders," he says, "are common to those who toil in teaching, whose yearning is after divine instruction, who despise delicate and varied diet, whose nourishment is fasting, and whose drink is water." As a purge of melancholy, he prescribes " a little wine, and some other more liberal sustenance." In his essay on causus, or "brain" fever, he describes the powers acquired by the soul before dissolution in the following remarkable words: "Every sense is pure, the intellect acute, the gnostic powers prophetic; for they prognosticate to themselves in the first place their own departure from life; then they foretell what will afterwards take place to those present, who fancy sometimes that they are delirious: but these persons wonder at the result of what has been' said. Others also talk to certain of the dead, perchance they alone perceiving them to be present, in virtue of their acute and pure sense, or perchance from their soul seeing beforehand, and announcing the men with whom they are about to associate. For formerly they were immersed in humors, as if in mud and darkness; but when the disease has drained these off, and taken away the mist from their eyes, they perceive those things which are in the air, and, through the soul being unencumbered, become true prophets." To those who wish further to pursue the study of medicine at this sera, the edition of Aretaeus by the Sydenham Society, and in a less degree that by Boerhaave (Lugd. Bat. 1735). to which the references have here been made, may be recommended.

As the general science of medicine and surgery of this period may be represented by Areteus, so we have nearly a representation of its Materia Medica by Dioscorides. He too was of the same general region-a Cilician Greek-and his first lessons were probably learnt at Tarsus. His period is tinged by the same uncertainty as that of Aretaeus; but he has usually been assigned to the end of the first or beginning of the second century (see Smith, Dict. of Class. Biog. s.v.). He was the first author of high mark who devoted his attention to Materia Medica. Indeed, this branch of ancient science remained as he left it till the times of the Arabians; and these, though they enlarged the supply of drugs and pharmacy, yet copy and repeat Dioscorides, as, indeed, Galen himself often does, on all common subject-matter. Above 90 minerals, 700 plants, and 168 animal substances are said to be described in the researches of Dioscorides, displaying an industry and skill which has remained the marvel of all subsequent commentators. Pliny, copious, rare, and curious as he is, yet, for want of scientific medical knowledge, is little esteemed in this particular branch, save when he follows Dioscorides. The third volume of Paulus AEgin. (ed. Sydenham Soc.) contains a catalogue of medicines simple and compound, and the large proportion in which the authority of Dioscorides has contributed to form it will be manifest at the most cursory inspection. To abridge such a subject is impossible, and to transcribe it in the most meagre form would be far beyond the limits of this article.

III. Pathology in the Bible.-Before proceeding to the examination of diseases in detail, it may be well to observe that the question of identity between any ancient malady known by description and any modern one known by experience is often doubtful. Some diseases, just as some plants and some animals, will exist almost anywhere; others can only be produced within narrow limits depending on the conditions of climate, habit, etc.-and were only equal observation applied to the two, the habitat of a disease might be mapped as accurately as that of a plant. It is also possible that some diseases once extremely prevalent may run their course and die out, or occur only casually; just as it seems certain that, since the Middle Ages, some maladies have been introduced into Europe which were previously unknown. See Biblioth. Script. Med. (Geneva, 1731), s.v.; Hippocrates, Celsus, Galen; Leclerc's History of Medicine (Paris, 1723; transl. London, 179f); Freind's History of Medicine.

1. General Maladies. — Eruptive diseases of the acute kind are more prevalent in the East than in colder climes. They also run their course more rapidly; e.g. common itch, which in Scotland remains for a longer time vesicular, becomes, in Syria, pustular as early sometimes as the third day. The origin of it is now supposed to be an acarus, but the parasite perishes when removed from the skin. Disease of various kinds is commonly regarded as a divine infliction, or denounced as a penalty for transgression; "the evil diseases of Egypt" (perhaps in reference to some of the ten plagues) are especially so characterized (Ge 20:18; Ex 15:26; Le 26:16; De 7:15; De 28:60; 1Co 11:30); so the emerods SEE HAEMORRHOIDS of the Philistines (1Sa 5:6) ; the severe dysentery (2Ch 21:15,19) of Jehoram, which was also epidemic SEE BLOOD, ISSUE OF; and SEE FEVER, the peculiar symptom of which may perhaps have been prolapsus ani (Dr. Mason Good, 1:311-13, mentions a case of the entire colon exposed); or, perhaps, what is known as diarrhaea tubularis, formed by the coagulation of fibrine into a membrane discharged from the inner coat of the intestines, which takes the mould of the bowel, and is thus expelled; so the sudden deaths of Er, Onan (Ge 38:7,10), the Egyptian first-born (Ex 11:4-5), Nabal, Bathsheba's son, and Jeroboam's (1Sa 25:38; 2Sa 12:15; 1Ki 14:1,5), are ascribed to the action of Jehovah immediately, or through a prophet. Pestilence (Hab 3:5) attends his path (comp. 2Sa 24:15), and is innoxious to those whom he shelters (Ps 91:3-10). It is by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos associated (as historically in 2Sa 24:13) with "the sword" and "famine" (Jer 14:12; Jer 15:2; Jer 21:7,9; Jer 24:10; Jer 27:8,13; Jer 28:8; Jer 29:17-18; Jer 32:24,36; Jer 34:17; Jer 38:2; Jer 42:17,22; Jer 44:13; Eze 5:12,17; Eze 6:11-12; Eze 7:15; Eze 12:16; Eze 14:21; Eze 33:27; Am 4:6,10). The sicknesses of the widow's son of Zarephath, of Ahaziah, Benhadad, the leprosy of Uzziah, the boil of Hezekiah, are also noticed as diseases sent-by Jehovah, or in which he interposed (1Ki 17:17,20; 1Ki 2

Kings 1:3; 20:1). In 2Sa 3:29, disease is invoked as a curse, and in Solomon's prayer (1Ki 8:37; comp. 2Ch 20:9) anticipated as a chastisement. Job and his friends agree in ascribing his disease to divine infliction; but the latter urge his sins as the cause. So, conversely, the healing character of God 'is invoked or promised (Ps 6:2; Ps 41:3; Ps 103:3; Jer 30:17). Satanic agency appears also as procuring disease (Job 2:7; Lu 13:11,16). Diseases are also mentioned as ordinary calamities; e.g. the sickness of old age, headache (perhaps by sunstroke), as that of the Shunammite's son, that of Elisha, and that of Benhadad, and that of Joram (Ge 48:1; 1Sa 30:13; 2Ki 4:20; 2Ki 8:29,29; 2Ki 13:14; 2Ch 22:6).

2. Among special diseases mentioned in the Old Test. are, ophthalmia (Ge 29:17, מכִלּוֹת עֵנִיַם)., which is perhaps more common in Syria and Egypt than anywhere else in the world, especially in the fig season, the juice of the newly-ripe fruit having the power of giving it. It may occasion partial or total blindness (2Ki 6:18). The eye-salve (κολλύριον, Re 3:18; Hor. Sat. i) was a remedy common to Orientals, Greeks, and Romans (see Hippocr. κολλούριον ; Celsus, 6:8, De oculorum morbis, [2] De diversis collyriis). Other diseases are- barrenness of women, which mandrakes were supposed to have the power of correcting (Ge 20:18; comp. 12:17; 30:1, 2, 14-16); "consumption," and several, the names of which are derived from various words, signifying to burn or to be hot (Le 26:16; De 28:22) SEE FEVER; compare the kinds of fever distinguished by Hippocrates as καῦσος and πῦρ. The "burning boil," or "of a boil" (Le 13:23, הִשּׁחַין צָרֶבֶת, Sept. οὐλὴ τοῦ ἕλκους), is again merely marked by the notion of an effect resembling -that of fire, like the Greek φλεγμονή, or our "carbuncle;" it may possibly find an equivalent in the Damascus boil of the present time. The "botch (שׁחַין) of Egypt" (De 28:27) is so vague a term as to yield a. most uncertain sense; the plague, as known by its attendant bubo, has been suggested-by Scheuchzer. It is possible that the Elephantiasis Graecorum may be intended by שׁחַין, understood in the widest sense of a continued ulceration until the whole body, or the portion affected, may be regarded as one שׁחַין. Of this disease some further notice will be taken below; at present it is observable that the same word is used to express the "boil" of Hezekiah. This was certainly a single locally-confined eruption, and was probably a carbuncle, one of which may well be fatal, though a single "boil" in our sense of the word seldom is so. Dr. Mead supposes it to have been a fever terminating in an abscess. The diseases rendered "scab" and "scurvy" in Le 21:20; Le 22:22; De 28:27, may be almost any skin-disease, such as those known under the names of lepra, psoriaris, pityriasis, icthyosis, favus, or common itch. Some of these may be said to approach the type of leprosy as laid down in Scripture, although they do not appear to have involved ceremonial defilement, but only a blemish disqualifying for the priestly office. The quality of 'being incurable is added as a special curse, for these diseases are not generally so, or at any rate are common in milder forms., The "running of the reins" (Le 15:2, :3 ; 22:4, marg.) may perhaps mean gonorrhoea, or more probably blennorrhcea (mucous discharge). If we compare Nu 25:1; Nu 31:7, with Jos 22:17, there is ground for thinking that some disease of this class 'derived from polluting sexual intercourse, remained among the people. The existence of gonorrhoea in early times -save in the mild form- has been much disputed. Michel Levy (Traiti d'Hygine, p. 7) considers the affirmative as established by the above passage, and says of syphilis, "Que pour notre part, nous n'avons jamais pu considerer comme une nouveaute du xve siecle." He certainly gives some strong historical evidence against the view that it was introduced into France by Spanish troops under Gonzalvo de Cordova'on their return from the New World, and so into the rest of Europe, where it was 'known as the morbus Gallicus. He adds, "La syphilis est perdue confusdment dans la pathologie ancienne par. la diversite de ses symptomes et de ses altdrations; leur interpretation collective, et leur redaction en une seule unite morbide, a fait croire a l'introduction d'une maladie nouvelle." See also Freind's History of Med., Dr. Mead, Michaelis, Reinhart (Bibelkrankheiten), Schmidt (Biblisch. Med.), and others. Wunderbar (BibTalm. Med. 3:20, commenting on Leviticus 15, and comparing Mishna, Zabim. 2:2, and Maimonides, ad loc.) thinks that gonorrhoea benigna was in the mind of the latter writers. Dr. Adams, the editor of Paul. AEgin. (Sydenh. Soc. 2:14), considers syphilis a modified form of elephantiasis. For all ancient notices of the cognate diseases, see that work, 1:593 sq. The "issue" of 15:19, may be the menorrhagia, the duration of which in the East is sometimes, when not checked by remedies, for an indefinite period (Mt 9:20), or uterine hemorrhage from other causes.

In De 28:35 is mentioned a disease attacking the "knees and legs," consisting in a " sore botch which cannot be healed," but extended, in the sequel of the verse, from the "sole of the foot to the top of the head." The latter part of the quotation would certainly accord with Elephantiasis Graecorum; but this, if the whole verse be a mere continuation of one described malady, would be in contradiction to the fact that this disease commences in the face, not in the lower members. On the other hand, a disease which affects the knees and legs, or more commonly one of them only-its principal feature being intumescence, distorting and altering all the proportions — is by a mere accident of language known as Elephantiasis Arabum, Bucnemia Tropica (Rayer, 3:820-841), or "Barbadoes leg," from being well known in that island. Supposing, however, that the affection of the knees and legs is something distinct, and that the latter part 'of the description applies to the Elephantiasis Graecorum, the incurable and all-pervading character of the malady are well expressed by it. This disease is what now passes under the name of " leprosy" (Michaelis, 3:259)-the lepers, e.g. of the huts near the Zion gate of modern Jerusalem are elephantiacs. It has been asserted that there are two kinds, one painful, the other painless; but, as regards Syria and the East, this is contradicted. There the parts affected are quite benumbed and lose sensation. It is classed as a tubercular disease, not confined to the skin, but pervading the tissues and destroying the bones. It is not confined to any age or either sex. It first appears in general, but not always, about the face, as an indurated nodule (hence it is improperly called tubercular), which gradually enlarges, inflames, and ulcerates. Sometimes it commences in the neck or arms. The ulcers will heal spontaneously, but only after a long period, and after destroying a great deal of the neighboring parts. If a joint be attacked, the ulceration will go on till its destruction is complete, the joints of finger, toe, etc., dropping off one by one. Frightful dreams and fetid breath are symptoms mentioned by some pathologists. More nodules will develop themselves, and, if the face be the chief seat of the disease, it assumes a leonine aspect (hence called also Leontiasis), loathsome and hideous; the skin becomes thick, rugose, and livid; the eyes are fierce and staring, and the hair generally falls off from all the parts affected. When the throat is attacked the voice shares the affection, and sinks to a hoarse, husky whisper. These two symptoms are eminently characteristic. The patient will become bed-ridden, and, though a mass of bodily corruption, seems happy and contented with his sad condition, until, sinking exhausted under the ravages of the disease, he is generally carried off, at least in Syria, by diarrhoea. It is hereditary, and may be inoculated, but does not propagate itself by the closest contact; e.g. two women in the aforesaid leper-huts remained uncontaminated though their husbands were both affected, and yet the children born to them were, like the fathers, elephantisiac, and became so in early life. On the children of diseased parents a watch for the appearance of the malady is kept; but no; one is afraid of infection, and the neighbors mix freely with them, though, like the lepers of the Old Test., they live " in a several house." Many have attributed to these wretched creatures a libido inexplebilis (see Proceedings of Med. and Chirurg. Soc. of London, Jan. 1860, 3:164, fromwhich some of the above remarks are taken). This is denied by Dr. Robert Sim (from a close study of the disease in Jerusalem), save insd' far 'as idleness and inactivity, with animal wants supplied, may conduce to it. It became first prevalent in Europe during the crusades, and by their means was diffused, and the ambiguity of designating it leprosy then originated, and has been generally since retained. Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxvi, 5) asserts that it was unknown in Italy till the time of Pompey the Great, when it was imported from Egypt, but soon became extinct (Paul. AEgin. ed. Sydenh. Soc. 2:6). It is, however, broadly distinguished from the λέπρα, λεύκη etc. of the Greeks by name and symptoms, no less than by Roman medical and even popular writers; comp. Lucretius, whose mention of it' is the earliest —

"Est elephas morbus, qui propter flumina Nili, Gignitur AEgypto in media,neque piretelrea usquam."

It is nearly extinct in Europe, save in Spain and Norway. A case was seen lately in the Crimea, but may have been produced elsewhere. It prevails in Turkey and the Greek Archipelago. One case, however, indigenous in England, is recorded among the medical facsimiles at Guy's Hospital. In Granada it was generally fatal after eight or ten years, whatever the treatment. This favors the correspondence of this disease with one of those evil diseases of Egypt, possibly its botch," threatened in De 33:27,29. This "botch," however, seems more probably to mean 'the foul ulcer mentioned by Areteus (De Sign. et Caus. Maor. Acut.i, 9), and called by him ἄφθα or ἐσχάρη. He ascribes its frequency in Egypt to the mixed vegetable diet there followed, and to the use of the turbid water of the Nil:' but adds that it is common in Coele-Syria.' The Talmud speaks of the elephantiasis (Baba Kama, 80 b) as being "moist without and dry within" (Wunlderbar, Biblisch-Talmudische Med. Mes Heft, 10, 11). ' Advanced cases are said to have: a cancerous aspect, and some even class it as a form of cancer; a disease dependent on faults of nutrition;

It has been asserted that this, which is perhaps the most dreadful disease of the East, was Job's malady. Origen, Hexapla on Job 2:7, mentions that one of the :Greek versions gives it, loc. cit., as the affliction which befel him. Wunderbar (ut sup. p. 10)'supposes it to have been the Tyrian leprosy, resting chiefly on the itching implied, as he:-supposes, by Job 2:7,:8. Schmidt (Biblischer Med. 4:4) thinks the "sore boil" may indicate some graver disease, or complication of diseases. But there is no need to go beyond the statement of Scripture, which speaks not only of this "boil," but of "kin loathsome and broken," "covered with worms and clods of dust;" the second symptom is the result of the 'first' and the "worms" are probably the larvae of some fly, known so to infest and make its nidus in any wound or sore exposed to the air, and to increase rapidly in'size. The "clods of dust" would of course follow from his " sitting in ashes." The "breath strange to his wife," if it be not a figurative expression for her estrangement from him, may imply a fetor, which in such a state of body hardly requires explanation. The expression my " bowels boiled" (xxx. 27) may refer to the burning sensation in the stomach and bowels, caused by acrid bile, which is common in ague. - Aretaeus (De Cur. Morb. Acut. 2:3) has a similar expression, θερμασίη τῶν σπλάγχνων οἵον ἀπὸ πυρός, as attending syncope. The "scaring dreams" and "terrifying visions" are perhaps a mere symptom of the state of mind bewildered by unaccountable afflictions. The intense emaciation was (33:21) perhaps the mere result of protracted sickness.

The disease of king Antiochus (2 Macc. 9:5-10, etc.) is that of a boil breeding worms (ulcus verminosunz). So Sulla, Pherecydes, and Alcman, the' poet, are mentioned (Plut. Vita Sullae) as similar cases. The examples of both the Herods (Josephus, Ant. 17:6,5;; War, 1:33, 5) may also be adduced, as-that of Pheretime (Herod. 4:205). There is some doubt :whether this disease 'be not allied to phthiriasis, in which lice are bred, and cause ulcers. This condition may originate either in a' sore, :or in a morbid habit of body brought on by uncleanliness, suppressed perspiration, or neglect; but the vermination, if it did not commence in a sore, would - produce one. 'Dr. Mason Good (iv. 504-6), speaking of μάλις, μαλιασμός =cutaneous vermination, mentions a case in the Westminster Infirmary, and an opinion that universal phythiriasis was no unfrequent disease among the ancients; he also states (p. 500) that in gangrenous ulcers, especially in warm climates, innumerable grubs or maggots will appear almost every morning. The camel and other creatures, are known to be the habitat of similar parasites." There are also cases of vermination without any wound or faulty outward state, such as the Vena :Medinensis, known in Africa as the "Guinea worm," of which Galen had heard only, breeding under the skin, and needing to be drawn out carefully by a needle, lest it break, when great soreness and suppuration succeed (Freind, Hist. of Med. i,'49; De Mandelslo's Travels, p.-4; and Paul. AEgin. t. iv, ed. Sydenh. Soc.). Rayer (iii. 808-819) gives a list of parasites, most of them in the skin. This "Guinea-worm," it appears, is also found in Arabia Petraea, on the coasts of the Caspian and Persian Gulf, on the Ganges, in Upper Egypt and Abyssinia (ib. 814). Dr. Mead refers Herod's disease to ἐντοζῶα, or intestinal worms. Shapter, without due foundation, objects that the word in that case should have been not σκώληξ, but εὐλή (Medica Sacra, p. 188).

In De 28:65 it is possible that a palpitation of the heart is intended to be spoken of (comp. Ge 45:26). In Mr 9:17: (comp. Lu 9:38) we have an apparent case of epilepsy, shown especially in the foaming, falling, wallowing, and similar violent symptoms mentioned; this might easily be a form of demoniacal manifestation. The case of extreme hunger recorded in 1 Samuel 14 was merely the result of exhaustive fatigue; but it is remarkable that the bulimia of which Xenophon speaks (Anab. iv 5, 7); was remedied by an application in which "honey" (compr.; 1Sa 14:27) was the chief ingredient.

Besides the common injuries of wounding, bruising, striking out eye, tooth, etc., we have in Ex 21:22 the case of miscarriage produced by a blow, push, etc., damaging the foetus.

The plague of "boils and blains" is not said to have been fatal to man, as the murrain preceding was to cattle; this alone would seem to contradict the notion of Shapter (Medica Sacra, p. 113), that the disorder in question was small-pox, which, wherever it has appeared, until mitigated by vaccination, has been fatal to a great part perhaps a majority of those seized. The small-pox also generally takes some days to :pronounce and mature, which seems opposed to the Mosaic account. The expression of Ex 9:10, a "boil" flourishing, or ebullient with blains, may perhaps be a disease analogous to phlegmonous erysipelas, or even common erysipelas, which is often accompanied by vesications such as the word "blains" might fitly describe. This is Dr. Robert Sim's opinion. On comparing, however, the means used to produce the disorder (Ex 9:8), an analogy is perceptible to what is called "bricklayer's itch," and therefore to leprosy. A disease involving a white spot breaking forth from a boil related to leprosy, and clean or unclean according to symptoms specified, occurs under the general locus of leprosy (Le 13:18-23).

The "withered hand" of Jeroboam (1Ki 13:4-6), and of the man (Mt 12:10-13; comp. Lu 6:10), is such an effect as is known to follow from the obliteration of the main artery of any member, or from paralysis of the principal nerve, either through disease or through injury. A case with a symptom exactly parallel to that of Jeroboam is mentioned in the life of Gabriel, an Arab physician. It was that of a woman whose band had become rigid in the act of swinging, and remained in the extended posture. The most remarkable feature in the case, as related, is the remedy, which consisted in alarm acting on the nerves, inducing a sudden and spontaneous effort to use the limb-an effort which, like that of the dumb son of Croesus (Herod. 1:85), was paradoxically successful. The case of the widow's son restored by Elisha (2Ki 4:19), was probably one of sunstroke. The disease of Asa" in his feet" (Schmidt, Biblischer Med. 3:5, 2), which attacked him in his old age (1Ki 15:23; 2Ch 16:12), and became exceeding great, may have been either adema, dropsy, or podagra, gout. The former is common in aged persons, in whom, owing to the difficulty of the return upwards of the sluggish blood, its watery part stays in the feet. The latter, though rare in the East at present, is mentioned by the Talmudists (Sotah, 10 a, and Sanhedrin, 48 b), and there is no reason why it may not have been known in Asa's time. It occurs in Hippocr. Aphor. vi, Prognost. 15; Celsus, 4:24; Aretseus, Morb. Chron. 2:12, and other ancient writers.

In I Macc. 6:8, occurs a mention of "sickness of grief;" in Ecclus. 37:30, of sickness caused by excess, which require only a passing mention. The disease of Nebuchadnezzar has been viewed by Jahn as a mental and purely subjective malady. It is not easy to see how this satisfies the plain, emphatic statement of Da 4:33, which seems to include, it is true, mental derangement, but to assert a degraded bodily state to some extent, and a corresponding change of habits. The "eagles' feathers" and "birds' claws" are probably used only in illustration, not necessarily as describing a new type to which the hair, etc., approximated. (Comp. the simile of Ps 103:5, and that of 2Ki 5:14.) We may regard it as Mead (Med. Sacr. vol. vii), following Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, does, as a species of -the melancholy known as Lycanthropia (Paulus JEgin. 3:16; Avicenha, 3:1, 5, 22). Persons so affected wander like wolves in sepulchres by night, and imitate the howling of a wolf or a dog. Further, there are well-attested accounts of wild or half-wild human creatures, of. either sex, who have lived as beasts, losing human consciousness, and acquiring a superhuman ferocity, activity, and swiftness. Either the lycanthropic patients or these latter may furnish a partial analogy to Nebuchadnezzar in regard to the various points of modified outward appearance and habits ascribed to him. Nor would it seem impossible that a sustained lycanthropia might produce this latter condition.

Here should be noticed the mental malady of Saul. His melancholy seems to have had its origin in his sin; it was therefore grounded in his moral nature, but extended its effects, as commonly, to the intellectual. The "evil spirit from God," whatever it mean, was no part of the medical features of his case, and may therefore be excluded from the present notice. Music, which soothed him for a while, has entered largely into the milder modern treatment of lunacy.

The palsy meets us in the New Test. only, and in features too familiar to need special remark. The words "grievously tormented" (Mt 8:6) have been commented on by Baier (De Paral. p. 32), to the effect that examples of acutely painful paralysis are not wanting in modern pathology, e.g. when paralysis is complicated with neuralgia. But if this statement be viewed with doubt, we might understand the Greek expression (βασανιζόμενος) as used of paralysis agitans, or even of chorea (StVitus's dance), in both of which the patient, being never still for a moment save when asleep, might well be so described. The woman's case who was "bowed together" by " a spirit of infirmity" may probably have. been paralytic (Lu 13:11). If the dorsal muscles were affected, those of the chest and abdomen, from want of resistance, would undergo contraction, and thus cause the patient to suffer as described.

Gangrene (γάγγραινα, Celsus, 7:33, de gangrena), or mortification in its various forms, is a totally different disorder from the "canker" of the AV. in 2Ti 2:17. Both gangrene and cancer were common in all the countries familiar to the scriptural writers, and neither differs from the modern disease of the same name (Dr. M. Good, 2:669, etc., and 579, etc.).

In Isa 26:18; Ps 7:14, there seems an allusion to false conception, in which, though attended by pains of quasi-labor and other ordinary symptoms, the womb has been found unimpregnated, and no delivery has followed. The medical term (Dr. M. Good, 4:188) ἐμπνευμάτωσις, mola ventosa, suggests the scriptural language, "We have, as it were, brought forth wind ;" the whole passage is figurative for disappointment after great effort.

Poison, as a means of destroying life, hardly occurs in the Bible, save as applied to arrows (Job 6:4). In Zec 12:2, the marg. gives " poison" as an alternative rendering, which does not seem preferable, intoxication being probably meant. In the annals of the Herods poisons occur as the resource of stealthy murder.

The bite or sting of venomous beasts can hardly be treated as a disease, but in connection with the "fiery (i.e. venomous) serpents" of Nu 21:6, and the deliverance from death of those bitten, it deserves a notice. Even the Talmud acknowledges that the healing power lay not in the brazen serpent itself, but " as soon as they feared the Most High, and uplifted their hearts to their heavenly Father, they were healed, and in default of this were brought to naught." Thus the brazen figure was symbolized only; or, according to the lovers of purely natural explanation, was the stage-trick to cover a false miracle. It was customary to consecrate the image of the affliction, either in its cause or in its effect, as in the golden emerods, golden mice, of 1Sa 6:4,8, and in the ex-votos common in Egypt even before the exodus; and these may be compared with the setting up of the brazen serpent. Thus we have in-it only an instance of the current custom, fanciful or superst tious, being sublimed to a higher purpose. The bite of a white she-mule, perhaps in the rutting season, is, according to the Talmudists, fatal; and they also mention that of a mad dog, with certain symptoms by which to discern his state (Wunderbar, ut sup. p. 21). The scorpion and centipede are natives of the Levant (Re 9:5,10), and, with a large variety of serpents, swarm there. To these, according to Lichtenstein, should be added a venomous solpuga, or large spider, similar to the Calabrian tarantula; but the passage in Pliny adduced (H. N. 29:29) gives no satisfactory ground for the theory based upon it, that its bite was the cause of the emerods. It is, however, remarkable that Pliny mentions with some fulness a mus araneus-not a spider resembling a mouse, but a mouse resembling a spider-the shrewmouse, and called araneus, Isidore says from this resemblance, or from ifs eating spiders. Its bite was venomous, caused mortification of the part, and a spreading ulcer attended with inward griping pains, and when crushed on the wound it was its own best antidote. SEE DISEASE.

The disease of old age has acquired a place in Biblical nosology chiefly. owing. to the elegant allegory into which ".The Preacher" throws the succeeding tokens of the ravage of time on man (Ecclesiastes 12). The symptoms enumerated have. each their. significance for the physician;: for, though his art can do little to arrest them, they yet mark an altered condition calling for a treatment of its own. "The Preacher" divides the sum of human existence into that period which involves every mode of growth, and that which involves every mode of decline. The first reaches from the point of birth or even of generation, onwards to the attainment of the "grand climacteric," and the second from that epoch backwards through a corresponding period of decline till the point of dissolution is reached. These are respectively called the ימי העַליה and the ימי העמידה of the rabbins (Wunderbar, 2tes. Heft). This latter course is marked in metaphor by the darkening of the great lights of nature, and the ensuing season of life is compared to the broken weather of the wet season, setting in when summer is gone, when after every shower fresh clouds are in the sky, as contrasted with the showers of other seasons, which pass away into clearness. Such he means are the ailments and troubles of declining age, as compared with those of advancing life. The "keepers of the house" are perhaps the ribs which support the frame, or the arms and shoulders which enwrap and protect it. Their "trembling," especially that of the arms, etc., is a sure sign of vigor past. The "strong men" are its supporters, the lowerlimbs bowing themselves" under the weight they once so lightly bore. The "grinding" hardly needs to be explained of the teeth, now become "few." The "lookers from the windows" are the pupils of the eyes, now "darkened," as Isaac's were, and Eli's; and Moses, though spared: the dimness, was yet in that very exemption a marvel (Genesis 27; comp. 48:10; 1Sa 4:15; De 34:7). The " doors shut" represent the dulness of those other senses which are the portals of knowledge; thus the taste and smell, as in the case of Barzillai, became impaired, and the ears stopped against sound. The "rising up at the voice of a bird" portrays the light, soon-fleeting, easily broken slumber of the aged man; or rather "to the voice of the bird," i.e. the high key, the

— "big, manly voice Now turn'd again to childish treble."

The "daughters of music brought low" suggest the cracked voice of age, or, as illustrated again by Barzillai, the failure in the discernment and the utterance of musical notes. The fears of old age are next noticed: "They shall be afraid of that which is high ;" an obscure expression, perhaps, for what are popularly called "nervous" terrors, exaggerating and magnifying every object of alarm, and "making," as the saying is, "mountains of mole- hills." Or, even more simply, these words may be understood as meaning that old men have neither vigor nor breath for going up hills, mountains, or anything else that is "high" nay, for them the plain, even the road has its terrors-they walk timidly and cautiously even. along that. "Fear in the way" is at first less obvious; but we observe that nothing unnerves and agitates an old person more than the prospect of a long journey. Thus regarded, it becomes a fine and subtile touch in the description of decrepitude. All readiness to haste is arrested, and a numb despondency succeeds. The "flourishing" of the "almond-tree" is still more obscure; but we observe this tree in Palestine blossoming when others show no sign of vegetation, and when it is dead winter all around-no ill type, perhaps, of the old man who has survived his own contemporaries and many of his juniors. Youthful zest dies out, and their strength, of which "the grasshopper'? is probably a figure, is relaxed. The "silver cord" has been thought to be that of nervous sensation, or motion, or even the spinal marrow itself. Possibly some incapacity of retention may be signified by the " golden bowl broken;" the " pitcher broken at the well" suggests the vital supply stopping at the usual source — derangement perhaps of the digestion or of the respiration; the "wheel shivered at the cistern" has been imagined to convey, through the image of the water-lifting process familiar in irrigation, the notion of the blood, pumped, as it were, through the vessels, and fertilizing the whole system; for "the blood is the life."

IV. Hebrew Therapeutics. — This careful register of the tokens of decline might lead us to expect great care for the preservation of health and strength; and this indeed is found to mark the Mosaic system, in the regulations concerning diet, the "divers washings," and the pollution imputed to a corpse-nay, even in circumcision itself. These served not only the ceremonial purpose of imparting self-consciousness to the Hebrew, and keeping him distinct from alien admixture, but had a sanitary aspect of rare wisdom, when we regard the country, the climate, and the age. The laws of diet had the effect of tempering, by a just admixture of the organic substances of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the regimen of Hebrew families, and thus providing for the vigor of future ages, as well as checking the stimulus which the predominant use of animal food gives to the passions. To these effects may be ascribed the immunity often enjoyed by the Hebrew race amid epidemics devastating the countries of their sojourn. The best and often the sole possible exercise of medicine is to prevent disease. Moses could not legislate for cure, but his rules did for the great mass of the people what no therapeutics, however consummate, could do-they gave the best security for the public health by provisions incorporated in the public economy. Whether we regard the laws which secluded the leper as designed to prevent infection or repress the dread of it, their wisdom is nearly equal, for of all terrors the imaginary are the most terrible. The laws restricting marriage have in general a similar tendency, degeneracy being the penalty of a departure from those which forbid commixture of near kin. Michel Ldvy remarks on the salubrious tendency of the law of marital separation (Leviticus 15) imposed (Levy, Traite de, Hygiene, p. 8). The precept also concerning purity on the necessary occasions in a desert encampment (Dent. 23:12-14), enjoining the return of the elements of productiveness to the soil, would probably become the basis of the municipal regulations having for their object a similar purity in towns. The consequences of its neglect in such encampments is shown by an example quoted by Michel Levy, as mentioned by M. de Lamartine (ib. 8, 9). Length of life was regarded as a mark of divine favor, and the divine legislator had pointed out the means of ordinarily insuring a fuller measure of it. to the people at large than could, according to physical laws, otherwise be hoped for. Perhaps the extraordinary means taken to-prolong vitality may be' referred to this source (1Ki 1:2), and there is no reason why the case of David should be deemed a singular one. We may also compare the apparent influence of vital warmth enhanced to a miraculous degree, but having, perhaps, a physical law as its basis, in the cases of Elijah, Elisha, and the sons of the widow of Zarephath, and the Shunammite. Wunderbar has collected several examples of such influence similarly exerted, which, however, he seems to exaggerate to an absurd pitch. Yet it would seem not against analogy to suppose that, as pernicious exhalations, miasmata, etc., may pass from the sick and affect the healthy, so there should be a reciprocal action in favor of health. The climate of Palestine afforded a great range, of temperature within a narrow compass- e.g. a long sea coast, a long, deep valley (that of the Jordan), a broad, flat; plain (Esdraelon), a large portion of table-land (Judah and Ephraim), and the higher elevations of Carmel, Tabor, the lesser and greater Hermon, etc. Thus it partakes of nearly all supportable climates. In October its rainy reason begins with moist westerly winds. In November the trees are bare. In December snow and ice are often found, but never lie long, and only during the north wind's prevalence. The cold disappears at the end of February, and the "latter rain" sets in, lasting through March to the middle of April, when thunder-storms apt common, torrents swell, and the heat rises in the low grounds. At the end of April the hot season begins, but preserves moderation till June, thence till September becomes extreme; and during all this period rain seldom occurs, but often heavy dews prevail. In September it commences to be cool, first at night, and sometimes the rain begins to fall at the end of it. The migration with the season from an inland to a sea-coast position, from low to high ground, etc., was a point of social development never systematically reached during the scriptural history of Palestine. But men inhabiting the same regions for centuries could hardly fail to notice the connection between the air and moisture of a place and human health, and those favored by circumstances would certainly turn their knowledge to account. The Talmudists speak of the north wind as preservative of life, and the south and east winds as exhaustive, but the south as the most insupportable of all, coming hot and dry from the deserts, producing abortion, tainting the babe yet unborn, and corroding the pearls in the sea. Further, they dissuade from performing circumcision or venesection during its prevalence (Jebamoth, 72 a, ap Wunderbar, 2tes Heft, vol. ii, A). It is stated that "the marriage-bed placed. between north and south will be blessed with male issue" (Berachoih, 15, ib.), which may, Wunderbar thinks, be interpreted of the temperature when moderate, and in neither extreme (which these winds respectively represent), as most favoring fecundity. If the fact be so, it is more probably related to the phenomena of magnetism, in connection with which the same theory has been lately revived. A number of precepts are given by the same authorities in reference to health; e.g. eating slowly, not contracting a sedentary habit, regularity in natural operations, cheerfulness of temperament, due sleep (especially early morning sleep is recommended), but not somnolence by day (Wunderbar, ut sup.). We may mention likewise in this connection that possession of an abundance of salt tended to banish much disease (Ps 60:2; 2Sa 8:13; 1Ch 18:12). Salt-pits (Zep 2:9) are still dug by the Arabs on the shore of the Dead Sea. For the use of salt to a new-born infant, Eze 16:4; comp. Galen, De Sanit. lib. i, cap. 7.

The rite of circumcision, besides its special surgical operation, deserves some notice in connection with the general question of the health, longevity, and fecundity of the race with whose history it is identified. Besides being a mark of the covenant and a symbol of purity, it was perhaps also a protest against the phallus-worship, which has a remote antiquity in the corruption of mankind, and of which we have some trace in the Egyptian myth of Osiris. It has been asserted also (Wunderbar, 3tes Heft, p. 25) that it distinctly contributed to increase the fruitfulness of the race, and to check inordinate desires in the individual. Its beneficial effects in such a climate as that of Egypt and Syria, as tending to promote cleanliness, to prevent or reduce irritation, and thereby to stop the way against various disorders, have been. the subject of comment to various writers on hygiene. In particular a troublesome and sometimes fatal kind of boil (phymosis and paraphymosis) is mentioned as occurring commonly in those regions, but only to the uncircumcised. It is stated by Josephus (Cont. Ap. 2:13) that Apion, against whom he wrote, having at first derided circumcision, was circumcised of necessity by reason of such a boil, of which, after suffering great pain, he died. Philo also appears to speak of the same benefit wen he speaks of the "anthrax" infesting those who retain the foreskin. Medical authorities have also stated that the capacity of imbibing syphilitic virus is less, and that this has been proved experimentally by comparing Jewish with other, e.g. Christian populations (Wunderbar, 3tes Heft, p. 27). The operation itself consisted of originally a mere incision, to which a further stripping off the skin from the part, and a custom of sucking the blood from the wound, was in a later period added, owing to the attempts of Jews of the Maccabaean period, and later (1 Macc. 1:15; Josephus, Ant. 12:5,1: comp. 1Co 7:8), to cultivate heathen practices. The reduction of the remaining portion of the praeputium after the more simple operation, so as to cover what it 'had exposed, known as epispasmus, accomplished by the elasticity of the skin itself, was what this anti-Judaic practice sought to effect, and what the later, more complicated and severe, operation. frustrated. To these were subjoined the use of the warm-bath, before and after the operation, pounded cummin as a styptic, and a mixture of wine and oil to heal the wound. It is remarkable that the tightly-swathed rollers, which formed the first covering of the new-born child (Lu 2:7), are still retained among modern Jews at the circumcision of a child, effectually preventing any movement of the body or limbs (Wunderbar, p. 29). SEE CIRCUMCISION.

No surgical operation beyond this finds a place in holy Scripture, unless, indeed, that adverted to under the article SEE EUNUCH. The Talmudists speak of two operations to assist birth, one known as קריעת הדופן (gastrotomia), and intended to assist parturition, not necessarily fatal to the mother; the other known as קריעת הבמן (hysterotomia, sectio caesarea), which was seldom practiced save in the case of death in the crisis of labor, or, if attempted on the living, was either fatal, or at least destructive of the powers of maternity. An operation is also mentioned by the same authorities having for its object the extraction piecemeal of an otherwise inextricable foetus (ibid. p. 53, etc.).

Wunderbar enumerates from the Mishna and Talmud fifty-six surgical instruments or pieces of apparatus;: of these, however, the following only are at all alluded td in Scripture. A cutting instrument, called ציר, supposed to be a "sharp stone" (Ex 4:25). Such was probably the ",Ethiopian stone" mentioned by Herodotus (2, 86), and Pliny speaks of what he calls Testa samia, as a similar implement. Zipporah seems to have caught up the first instrument which came to hand in her apprehension for the life of her husband. The "knife" (מאכלת) of Joshua v. 2 was probably a more refined instrument for the same purpose. An "awl" (מרצע) is mentioned (Ex 21:6) as used to bore through the ear of the bondman who refused release. and is supposed to have been a surgical instrument. A seat of delivery; called in Scripture אבנים, Ex 1:16, by the Talmudists משבי (comp. 2Ki 19:3), "the stools;" but some have doubted whether the word Used by Moses does not mean rather the uterus itself, as that which moulds and shapes the infant. Delivery upon a seat or stool is, however, a common practice in France at this day, and also in Palestine. The' "roller to bind" of Eze 30:21 was for a broken limb, as still used. Similar bands, wound with the most precise accuracy, involve the mummies. A scraper (חרס), for which the "potsherd" of Job was a substitute (Job 2:8).

Ex 30:5-23 is a prescription in form. It may be worth while also to enumerate the leading substances which, according to Wunderbar, composed the pharmacopeia of the Talmudists-a much more limited one which will afford some insight into the distance which separates them from the leaders of Greek medicine. Besides such ordinary appliances as water, wine (Lu 10:34), beer, vinegar, honey, and milk, various oils are found; as opobalsamim (" balm of Gilead"), the oil of olive, myrrh, rose, palma christi, walnut, sesamum, colocynth, and fish; figs (2Ki 20:7), dates, apples (Song 2:5), pomegranates, pistachio-nuts, and almonds (a produce of Syria, but not of Egypt, Ge 43:11); wheat, barley, and various other grains; garlic, leeks, onions, and some other common herbs; mustard, pepper, coriander seed, ginger, preparations of beet, fish, etc., steeped in wine or vinegar, whey, eggs, salt, wax, and suet (in plasters), gall of fish (Tob. 6:8; 11:11), ashes, cow dung, etc.; fasting- saliva, urine, bat's blood, and the following rarer herbs, etc.; ammesision, menta gentilis, saffron, mandragora, Lawsonia spinosa (Arab. alhenna), juniper, broom, poppy, acacia, pine, lavender or rosemary, cloverroot, jujub, hyssop, fern, sampsuchum, milk-thistle, laurel, Eruca muralis, absynth,jasmine, narcissus, madder, curled mint, fennel, endive, oil of cotton, myrtle, myrrh, aloes, sweet cane (acorus calamus), cinnamon, canella alba, cassia, ladanum, galbanum, frankincense, storax nard, gum of various trees, musk, blatta byzantina; and these minerals-bitumen, natrum, borax, alum, clay. aetites, quicksilver, litharge, yellow arsenic. The following preparations were also well known: Theriacas, an antidote prepared from serpents; various medicinal drinks, e.g. from the fruit- bearing rosemary; decoction of wine. with vegetables; mixture of wine, holiey, and pepper; of oil, wine, and water; of asparagus and other roots steeped in wine; emetics, purging draughts, soporifics, potions to produce abortion or fruitfulness; and various salves, some used cosmetically, e.g. to remove hair; some for wounds and other injuries. The forms of medicaments were cataplasm, electuary, liniment. plaster (Isa 1:6; Jer 8:22; Jer 46:11; Jer 51:8; Josephus, War, 1:33,5), powder, infusion, decoction, essence, syrup, mixture.

An occasional trace occurs of some chemical knowledge, e.g. the calcination of the gold by Moses; the effect of "vinegar upon nitre" (Ex 32:20; Pr 25:20; comp. Jer 2:22). The mention of " the apothecary" (Ex 30:35; Ec 10:1), and of the merchant in "powders" (Song 3:6), shows that a distinct and important branch of trade was set up in these wares, in which, as at a modern druggist's, articles of luxury, etc., are combined with the remedies of sickness (see further, Wunderbar, stes Heft, p. 73, ad fin.).

Among the most favorite of external remedies has always been the bath. As a preventive of numerous disorders its virtues were known to the Egyptians, and the scrupulous Levitical bathings prescribed by Moses would merely enjoin the continuance of a practice familiar to the Jews, from the example especially of the priests in that country. Besides the significance of moral purity which it carried, the use of the bath checked the tendency to become unclean by violent perspirations from within and effluvia from without; it kept the porous system in play, and stopped the outset of much disease. In order to make the sanction of health more solemn, most Oriental nations have enforced purificatory rites by religious mandates-and so the Jews. A treatise collecting all the dicta of ancient medicine on the use of the bath has been current ever since the revival of learning, under the title De Balneis. According to it, Hippocrates and Galen prescribe the bath medicinally in peripneumonia rather than in burning fever, as tending to allay the pain of the sides, chest, and back, promoting various secretions, removing lassitude, and suppling joints. A hot bath is recommended for those suffering from lichen (De Baln. p. 464). Those, on the contrary, who have looseness of the bowels, who are languid, loathe their food, are troubled with nausea or bile, should not use it, as neither should the epileptic. After exhausting journeys in the sun, the bath is commended as the restorative of moisture to the frame (p. 456- 458). The four objects which ancient authorities chiefly proposed to attain by bathing are

1, to warm and distil the elements of the body throughout the whole frame, to equalize whatever is abnormal, to rarefy the skin, and promote evacuations through it;

2, to reduce a dry to a moister habit;

3 (the cold bath), to cool the frame and brace it;

4 (the warm bath), a sudorific to expel cold. Exercise before bathing is recommended, and in the season from April till November inclusive it is the most conducive to health; if it be kept up in the other months, it should then be but once a week, and that fasting. Of natural waters some are nitrous, some saline, some aluminous, some sulphureous, some bituminous, some copperish, some ferruginous, and some compounded of these. Of ali the natural waters the power is, on the whole, desiccant and calefacient, and they are peculiarly fitted for those of a humid and cold habit. Pliny (H. N. xxxi) gives the fullest extant account of the thermal springs of the ancients (Paul. AEgin. ed. Sydenh. Soc. 1:71). Avicenna gives precepts for salt and other mineral baths; the former he recommends in case of scurvy an ditching, as rarefying the skin, and afterwards condensing it. Waters medicates with alum, natron, sulphur, naphtha, iron, litharge, vit ,riol, and vinegar, are also specified by him. Frictitr and unction are prescribed, and a caution given against staying too long in the water (ibid. p. 338-340; comp Aetius, De Baln. 4:484). A sick bather should lie quiet and allow others to rub and anoint him, and use no strigil (the common instrument for scraping the skin). but a sponge (p. 456). Maimonides, chiefly following Galen, recommends the bath, especially for phthisis in the aged, as being a case of dryness with cold habit, and to a hectic-fever patient as being a case of dryness with hot habit; also in cases of ephemeral and tertian fevers, under certain restrictions, and in putrid fevers, with the caution not to incur shivering. Bathing is dangerous to those who feel pain in the liver after eating. He adds cautions regarding the kind of water, but these relate chiefly to water for drinking (De Baln. p. 438, 439). The bath of oil was formed, according to Galen and Aetius, by adding the fifth part of heated oil to a waterbath. Josephus speaks (War, 1:33, 5) as though oil had, in Herod's case, been used pure. There were special occasions on which the bath was ceremonially enjoined after a leprous eruption healed, after the conjugal act, or an involuntary emission, or any gonorrhea discharge, after menstruation, childbed, or touching a corpse; so for the priests before and during their times of office such a duty was prescribed. The Pharisees and Essenes aimed at scrupulous strictness of all such rules :(Mt 15:2; Mr 7:5; Lu 11:38). Riverbathing was common, but houses soon began to include a bath-room (Le 15:13;. 2Ki 5:10; 2Sa 11:2; Susanna 15). Vapor-baths, as among the Romans, were latterly included in these, as well as hot and. cold bath. apparatus, and the use of perfumes and oils after quitting it was everywhere diffused (Wunderbar, 2tes Heft, vol. ii, B). The vapor was sometimes sought to be inhaled, though this was reputed mischievous to the teethe It was deemed healthiest after a warm to take also a cold bath(Paul. AEgin. ed. Sydenh. Soc. 1:68). The Talmud has it-" Whoso takes a warm bath, and does not also drink thereupon some warm water, is like a stove hot only from without, but not heated also from within. Whoso bathes, and does not withal anoint, is like the liquor outside a vat. Whoso having had a warm bath does not also immediately pour cold water over him, is like an iron made to glow in the fire, but not thereafter hardened inl the water." This succession of cold water to hot vapor is commonly practiced in Russian and Polish baths, and is said to contribute much to robust health (Wunderbar, ibid.). SEE BATHE.

V. Literature.-Besides the usual authorities on Hebrew antiquities, Talmudical and modern, Wunderbar 2stes Heft, p. 57-69) has compiled a collection of writers on the special subject of scriptural, etc., medicine, including its psychological and botanical aspects, as also its political relations; a distinct section of thirteen monographs treats of the leprosy; and every various disease mentioned in Scripture appears elaborated in one or more such short treatises. Those out of the whole number which appear most generally in esteem, to judge from references made to them, are the following, which include a few from other sources: Rosenmuller's Natural History of the Bible (in the Biblical Cabinet, vol. xxvii); De Wette, Hebraisch-judische Archdologie, § 271 b; Calmet (Augustin), La Mgdecine et les Medecins des anc. Hebreux (in his Comm. litrale, Paris, 1724, vol. v); idem, Dissertation sur la Sueur du Sang (Lu 22:43-44); Pruner, Krankheiten des Orients; Sprengel (Kurt), De medic. Ebrceorum (Halle, 1789, 8vo); idem, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Medicin (Halle, 1794, 8vo); idem, Versuch einer pragm. Geschichte der A rzeneikunde (Halle, 1792, 1803, 1821; the last edition by Dr. Rosenbaum, Leipsic; 1846, 8vo, vol. i, § 37-45); idem, Histor. Rei Herbar. (lib. i, cap. i, Flora Biblica); Bartholini (Thom.), De morbis biblicis, miscellanea medica (in Ugolini, 30:1521); idem, Paralytici novi Testamenti (in Ugolini, 30:1459), Schmidt (Joh. Jac.), Biblischer Medicus (Ziillichau, 1743, 8vo, p. 761); Kall, De morbis sacerdot. V. T. (Hafn. 1745, 4to); Reinhard (Chr. Tob. Ephr.), Bibelkrankheit., welche imn alten Testam. vorkommen (i and 2:1767, 8vo, p. 384; v. 1768, 8vo, p. 244); Shapter (Thomas),:Medica sacra, or Short Expositions of the more important Diseases mentioned in the Sacred Writings (London, 1834) ; Wunderbar (R. J.), Biblisch- Talmudische Medicin (in 4 parts, Riga, 1850-1853, 8vo; new series, 1857); Celsius (01.), Hierobofanicon, s. deplantis sacrce scripturce dissertationes breves (2 parts, Upsal, 1745, 1747, 8vo; Amstelod. 1748); Bochart (Samuel), Hierozoicon, s. bipartitum, opus de animulibus sacrce scripturce (London, 1665, fol.; Frankfort, 1675, fol.; edited by, and with'the notes of Ern. F. G. Rosenmuller, Lips. 1793, 3 vols. 4to);

Spencer, De legibus Hebroeorum ritualibus (Tiibingen, 1732, fol.); Reinhard (Mich. H.),-De cibis Hebrceorum prohibitis; Diss. I respon. Seb. Muller (Viteb. 1697, 4to); Diss. II respon. Chr. Liske (ibid. 1697, 4to); Eschenbach (Chr. Ehrenfr.), Progr. de lepra Judceorum (Rostock, 1774, 4to; in his Scripta medic. bibl p. 17-41); Schilling (G. G.), De lepra commentationes, rec. J. D. Hahn (Lugd. Bat. 1788, 8vo); Chamseru (R.), Recherches sur le veritable caractere de la lepre des Hebreux (in Mem. de la Soc. medic. d'emulation de Paris, 1810, 3:335); Relation Chirurgicale de l'A rmee de l'Orient (Paris, 1804); Wedel (GeoW.), De lepra in sacris (Jena, 1715, 4to; in his Exercitat. med. philolog. Cent. II, dec. 4, p. 93- 107); idem, De morb. Hiskie (Jena, 1692, 4to; in his Exercitat. med. philolog. Cent. I, dec. 7); idem, De morbo Jorazmi exercitat. I, II (Jena, 1717, 4to; in his Exercitat. med. philolog. Cent. II, dec. 5); idem, De Saulo energumeno (Jena, 1685; in his Exercitat. med. philolog. Cent. I, dec. 2); idem, De morbis senumn Solomonceis (Jena, 1686, 4to; in his Exercitat. med. philolog. Cent. I, dec. 3); Lichtenstein, Versuch, etc. (in Eichhorn's Allgem. Bibliothek, 6:407-467); Mead (Dr. R.), Medica Sacra (London, 4to); Gudius (G. F.), Exercitatio philologica de Hebraica obstetricum origine (in Ugolini, 30:1061); Kall, De obstetricibus matsrum Hebrearum in AEgypto (Hamburg, 1746, 4to); Israels (Dr. AH.), Tentamene historico- medicum, exhibens collectanea Gyncecologica, quee ex Talmude Babylonico depromsit (Griningen, 1845, 8vo); Borner (F.), Dissert. de statu -Medicinoe ap. Vett. Hebr. (1735); Norberg, De Medicina Arabum (in Opusc. Acad. 2:404); Aschkenazei (Mos.), De ortu etprogressu Medicinee inter Hebrceos (Hamburg, 17., 8vo);' Ginsburger (B. W.), De Aledica ex Talnudis illustrata (Gotting. 1743, 4to); Goldmann, De rebus medices Vet. Test. (Bresl. 1846, 4to); Leutenschliger (J. H.), De medicis veterum Hebr. (Schleiz. 1786, 8vo); Lindlinger (J. S.), De Hebr. vett. medica de Dcemoniacis (Wittenb. 1774, 2 vols. 8vo); Reineccius (Chr.), Dictum Talmudieum de optimo nedico, Gehenne digno (Weissenb. 1724, fol.). SEE PHYSICIAN.