that is sometimes more potent remedially than drugs. They were acquainted with the psychology of belief, and possessed knowledge of the vis medicatrix naturæ, and knew well the remedial influence of faith. To these they appealed with such means and methods as were at hand. Nor did they often appeal in vain. Great and intelligent attention was paid to regimen-diet, ablutions, and exercise-by these early physicians. Physical training was a prominent feature in the treatment of malady, as well as in preserving health. To that end gymnasiums were regularly fitted up in the temples, with gymnasiarchs in attendance to superintend the exercises and to adjust them to each case.

Let no one suppose that the psychologic procedures, which were a part of their art, appealed to the imagination of the patient. He who takes that view of the influence of the imagination shows a mistaken conception of the nature and function of imagination. We are aware that learned men in the practice of the medical art do take that view. We are persuaded, however, that they do so without giving the subject sufficient thought. It is an easy way to dismiss a subject about which few care to write or to think. But one with equal reason might attribute a cure to a comet, or to an eclipse. A moment's serious reflection would convince the physio-psychologist or psychiatrist that the imaginative faculty is in no way directly related to the instinctive life of an

individual, no more than is reason or mathematics, and therefore can have no influence over its functions either in health or disease. Imagination, be it observed, is a mental function of the highest order. It enlarges the conceptions of its possessor. It is creative in its prerogative, or pure intellection, having no direct relation to the unconscious life of the individual, wherein are posited the forces of the physical life, and upon which is predicated the vis medicatrix naturæ, or the healing power of nature. We repeat that it was to the unconscious or instinctive forces of nature that the early physicians appealed, whether they knew it or not, and to which all primitive "medicine men" appeal to-day, in seeking to give relief from physical or mental disorders, by the pretence of possessing occult powers. They are not persons of great intellect and powers of imagination that are susceptible of, or amenable to, hypnotic influence or suggestion; but rather the unlearned and credulous who are moved by such influences, and upon whom the marvels of great cures are effected. In this respect, the Fiji sorcerers, in pretending to suck small stones or other foreign substances from the body of a fever case, are not altogether unlike our forefather physicians of ancient Thessaly-more crude, it is true, but identical in principle. The sorcerer's arts and the rites and ceremonials of religion are practised in vain upon the man of science.

In the art of surgery, the early Greek was

probably more rational than in the practice of medicine, since surgery involves so largely the genius of the mechanic. It appears that the temples erected in commemoration of Greece's great "god of physic" were hospitals or sanatoriums, to which surgical cases were taken for treatment, and where the diseased and infirm were likewise cared for. These were under the care of priests and, together with other means, rites and ceremonies were resorted to. It also appears that fees were charged, in some instances, for services rendered there.

Esculapius was the first to introduce gymnastics as a curative measure, of which Hippocrates made so prominent a use. He is accredited also with being the author of Cliniques, and of Clinical Medicine, from the Greek xλiv, bed. He seems to have been the first physician to visit the sick at the bedside.1

The temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, remains of which still exist, was the refuge of the afflicted and unfortunate of all classes of people. Kept there were serpents, the emblem of wisdom in all Asia, under the charge of the beautiful goddess, Hygeia. And when epidemics invaded the land and the inhabitants were scourged by disease, it was to Hygeia they looked for relief. She had only to bring out the serpents and wave them in the presence of the people, uttering a few words of assurance meanwhile, to restore confidence and

1 Le Clerc, p. 42.

banish the epidemics. Such was the force and supremacy of blind belief!

After the death of Esculapius and his sons, medicine fell into the hands of their followers and successors, the Asclepiada, of whom still less is known than of their predecessors. Medicine gradually drifted into the exclusive hands of the priests and sorcerers. The priests performed the rites and ceremonies of religion and ministered unto the sick as well. They became a class that arrogated to itself the powers and privileges of an order. The priests were supposed to possess learning and wisdom, and were, of course, the repositories of such knowledge as was current at that time. It was to their interest to keep the people in ignorance, that thereby they might the better and more securely hold on to the power, privileges, and emoluments which their position gave them. These self-constituted guardians and conservators of the interests of the souls and bodies of the people were moved by motives and considerations characteristic of their class among all nations and people. It is not in their mental make-up voluntarily to give up or to renounce a good thing when once acquired. Medical progress was therefore at a standstill.

It is a singular phenomenon that in the evolution of science, as well as of man, the tracer of events comes suddenly upon breaks in the continuity of progress. Mr. Darwin traced man from a humble

beginning to the anthropoid ape, but at that point he halted. There was a link missing that was necessary to connect the Gibbon, of the PostGlacial period, with the ape-man of the present epoch.

The anthropologists are still hunting for it. In following the progress of science the same phenomenon is met with. We have traced Medicine, for example, from Egypt to Greece, where under the ægis of a great and exalted character, Esculapius, it bade fair to enter upon an era of indefinite expansion; from him we found it in the hands of his sons, who were almost as distinguished in the art as their father; thence we traced it to the Asclepiadæ, or priests; thence to the temples which were erected after the death of Esculapius, by idolatrous worshippers, to his honor. But there the continuity halts. For more than seven hundred years nothing more was heard of medicine or medical heroes. They slept in the temples and continued there to sleep for nearly one thousand years, when Hippocrates unearthed records, it is presumed, of a clinical character, from their vaults, which showed that the priests had not been wholly idle. Meantime, Greece had passed through many notable epochs,-immortalized by many illustrious names. There were the heroism of the Spartans, the culture of Athens, a Lycurgus, a Solon, a Homer, a Pindar, a Hesiod, a Thales, Diagonus, Empedocles, and Pythagoras, the philosopher, as he called himself, and who has the