Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/35

19 CHAPTER II CARE OF THE SICK IN THE ANCIENT WORLD A S man developed in intellect and capacity, the forces of nature took on, in his imagina- tion, the forms of highly evolved nature gods of complex attributes, and every nation composed its legends and myths of deities who watched over health and had powers affix time-periods to ancient civiliza- "^^'i^ations tions, for the researches of modern scholar- ship are continually bringing out new proofs of age, in tablets, excavated cities, etc. By such sources the time of recorded history is being ex- tended farther into the past, and now from one country, now from another, comes some new contribution to the sum of our knowledge of civili- zations as they were before the Christian era. In the deciphered records of early medical and re- ligious codes are to be found such fragmentary bits of information as we possess upon our subject over life and death. It is not easy to The age of ancient civilizations