Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/52

 Jehovah, but from the physicians. Jeremiah expresses astonishment that not a single physician is to be found in Gilead. May this not be interpreted as signifying that regularly established physicians were at that time (595 B. C.) to be found in some parts of Palestine? And, at a much earlier period (1500 B. C.), Job calls his friends "physicians of no value" (Job xiii., iv.). From these and a number of other statements in the Bible it seems permissible to believe that, at a very early period of history, the Jewish physicians occupied an entirely independent position.

It would doubtless appear strange to most readers of this brief sketch of the history of medicine if some reference were not made in this place to Luke, the author of the gospel which bears his name and of the Acts of the Apostles, and who was also the companion of Paul on his journey to Rome and during a portion of the latter's stay in that city. Luke was a native of Antioch, in Syria, and not a Jew. He was a physician and tradition says that he was also a painter. It is not known where he received his medical training, but it is not at all unlikely that he studied at Alexandria, in Egypt, where the greatest facilities for such training, obtainable at that period, were to be found. His style of writing shows plainly that he was a man of considerable cultivation and endowed with a clear and logical mind; and if he had not possessed a genial personality he would hardly have been known as "the beloved physician"; nor could any other motive but those of loyal, self-sacrificing friendship for his friend, and a desire to promote the cause of Christianity, have led him to share with Paul the dangers and discomforts of the journey to Rome.

The Medicine of India, China and Japan.—It would be too much of a departure from the plan which is being followed in the writing of this history to attempt to describe, even in the briefest manner, the mode of development of the science and art of medicine in India, China and Japan. Unquestionably the earlier physicians of these countries made many valuable contributions to