Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/625

Rh with the rise of the belief in witchcraft, medical science, using the term in a very loose sense, received a distinct check. What was the advantage of familiarizing one's self with the nature or usual progress of a disease if its course was constantly liable to be interrupted by the will of some malevolent being possessed of supernatural power? What was to be gained by administering remedies that might at any time be rendered nugatory by the same demoniacal interference? Those who embraced the new faith promulgated by Luther were in some respects worse off than those who clung to the old religion. While catholics and protestants alike believed in witches and other agents of the devil, the former had also their saints and the virgin, to whom they could appeal in time of temptation and distress and who were rarely appealed to in vain. For the latter, Satan and his emissaries were no less real; but he had given up his faith in the efficacy of the intercession of the saints and the virgin. His only resource, therefore, was to protect himself as best he might by dealing mercilessly with those who had anything to do with the black art.

The late Herbert Spencer is said to have reached the conclusion toward the close of his life that man is not a rational being. One can hardly help subscribing to this creed when he learns the attitude of the public toward medical practise. We can understand why there should be a great deal of hazy thinking in matters of law and theology, since they have to do with problems that are at best more or less abstract. But why the public should willfully shut its eyes to practical benefits in every-day matters, matters that so vitally concern its life and health, is hard to understand. Yet it is no harder to understand than why a stone will not of itself roll up hill. We can only realize this mental asphyxiation in the face of overwhelming evidence. It is explicable only from the standpoint of the universal belief in the utter powerlessness of man in the presence of the spirits that surround him and dwell within him. Though the scriptures have much to say about casting out devils, the belief in them is human rather than christian, since it is found among all the peoples of the globe, except among that small class who may be called rationalists; or who, if not themselves entitled to this designation, have inherited a rationalistic creed; for a rationalist is simply one who refuses to believe anything except on such evidence as his reason approves.

There are grounds for believing that Aristotle dissected human bodies; at least on no other grounds can his correct information with regard to certain points in anatomy be explained. But for prudential reasons he did not deem it wise to make public how this knowledge was obtained. Salerno seems to have been the first medical school in Italy outside of Spain, that is, the earliest in charge of christians, and the probability is that its origin has some connection with the Arab