Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/40

24 lasted long, for we remember the question put to Christ by His disciples, "Did this man sin, or his parents?" (We may, indeed, trace it down to our own day, for, when chloroform was discovered, and was first used in lessening the pains of childbirth, numerous sermons were preached showing that the curse laid upon Eve made these pains a punishment for sin, and it was therefore an impiety to interfere by mitigating them.) Others of the Assyrian and Babylonian beliefs were based on nature study. Such were their ideas as to the potency of numbers, based on observation of the heavenly bodies and the movements of the stars and planets. They were fond of the number seven, which has always held and still holds a high place in mystic lore, and tied it in knots on cords. Other occult regulations arose from agricultural experience, and fixed the times and seasons for gathering roots and herbs. So persistent have been these traditions that many country people still plant by the moon. Still others were symbolic and doubtless had for ancient people a poetic quality lost to modern minds. Such may well have been the use of charms and amulets, the custom of sprinkling with holy water, and the ceremonial of burning small objects by fire in the treatment of disease.