their composition; hence the prescriptions as to their use; hence the λtzà in the Orphic mysteries, which were transported from the Black and Caspian seas." (Herder.)

The Persians seem to have been especially famous for their knowledge of poisons. The Hauma-drink-a drink prepared from the plant Hauma, which, like the mandragora, was a god-increased fruitfulness, and was prescribed by the physicians for pains in the limbs, catarrhal obstructions and urinary diseases. All very meager traditions!

The regulations of the ancient Persians with respect to medical fees. and examinations are known to us more fully than their medicine. The priests alone were very bad pay, a simple benediction sufficing to satisfy their score. All other persons, however, paid well. Thus the chief of a tribe paid with a farm; a local magnate, and a boy of good family, paid one large draught-ox; a house-holder, a small draught-ox; women were to be treated more cheaply. Thus the fee for the lady of the house was one she-ass; for the wife of the chief of a family, one cow; for the wife of the chief of a tribe, one mare (a horse in the times of Darius was worth 50 Persian daries, which, if of gold, were equivalent to five dollars, if of silver, to fifty cents); the wife of the lord of the province paid one shecamel. Thus the famous doctors of that day were able to acquire in the end, in place of our modern stocks, a tolerably fine collection of live stock,. especially as it was considered among the Persians the greatest disgrace to remain in debt (and to lie)—an idea which, as we know, is entirely exploded in the present day, at least as regards physicians. Even the veterinary surgeons were not forgotten in the Old-Persian tariff. They too were paid in cattle, receiving for the cure of a large draught-ox, one of medium size; for that of a medium sized ox, a small one, and for the cure of a small one, the value of it in feed; sick dogs (the dog was a sacred animal) must be treated like human beings.-As regards examinations, (which were limited to "practical cases"), any physician who had "cut" three unbelievers, and on these occasions had "done for" them all, failed to pass; if, however, the unbelievers survived, the faithful might give him a trial.

At his pleasure let him treat the faithful, and at his pleasure let him cure them by cutting."

These minute regulations seem to indicate a higher education, even in medicine, than we have been aware of up to the present time. Yet it is also known that their other knowledge, especially in architecture, astronomy, technics, postal matters etc., attained considerable height. It is quite possible too that the Persian medicine proper occupied a low position (for only Egyptians and Greeks are known to us as court physicians), and that these regulations as to fees were directed against extortion on the part of the lower native sacerdotal physicians only.

It is well known that the Assyrians also belonged among the most powerful and cultivated peoples of ancient times, a fact indisputably established by the recently deciphered cuneiform inscriptions and the monu-