half of the fourth decade of this century, appears the figure a copy of which is here given (Fig. 26). The idea is better than its execution.

Ideas for symbolic designs of medical import are not scarce. The instruments and drugs used by the disciples of Esculapius afford a host, if one does not wish to turn to mythology or anything allied. But, although the scientific physician might properly hesitate about using, say, an emblem of St. Luke, the patron saint of physicians, there are mythological and related conceptions, many of which might be utilized to good purpose. Thus, if it be desired to give an Egyptian design on the cover of a book, say, on obstetrics, the main part of an admirable one may be found ready at hand on the wall of the great temple at Luxor. It is the scene -and a sufficiently chaste one, too-of the maiden mother giving birth to the future king, Amunotoph III, for whom the temple or palace was erected about 1400 B.C. She is seated on the midwife's stool, as described in the Bible, while two nurses have her by the hands, doing what they can to ease the pains of labor. Or, a representation of Pasht, Bubastis, or Sekhet, the sister of Horus and mother of Imhotep,-who generally appeared cat-headed because the cat, a most sacred animal, was consecrated to her, would not be inappropriate; for, to use the words of Ebers," she seems to have been honored as the deity who conferred the blessing of children and watched over their birth."3

2

But, for a design of obstetrical import, there could

1 See Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology, p. 19.
Princess, vol. i, p. 37.

2 Exodus, i, 16.

probably be few better than one in which prominence were given to the good housewifery symbols, the pestle, hatchet, and broom; those, respectively, of Pilumnus, a god of children; Intercidona, the goddess who first taught the art of cutting firewood; and Deverra, the goddess who invented the broom, that great instrument of cleanness and enemy of the Typhon, or, I may say, Hydra, of many modern doctors, the diseasegerm: the deities that saved the pregnant woman from harm from her special enemies, the unclean sylvan gods. The broom! Wise old Romans! Wiser than the unsteady enthusiasts of our time, with bottles of carbolic acid in their hands yesterday and of corrosive sublimate to-day. And with these symbols, especially if the design were for a work by a female author, there might be given a figure of Juno Lucina, the special friend of women in labor, the type of the Eileithyiai, the handmaids of Hera, of the Greeks.

And here I may observe that, according to ancient custom, the goddess Juno Lucina should be represented with one hand empty and, as it were, ready to receive the coming infant, and with the other holding a lighted torch, a symbol of life. The torch should be erect, for when the flame is turned downward it signifies death. In the seal of the American Gynecological Society, a woman, possibly meant for Juno, is represented with a torch in her right hand and in the other a sprig of evergreen, with a baby resting on the arm. This is of obstetric import. The members of the society, however, consider themselves something else than midwives. Judging from their title, they might be petits maîtres.

CHAPTER XX.

THE PENTACLE.

By way of conclusion, and at the risk of running too deep into occult learning, I will give some account of a remarkable magic figure, of interest to the physician, about which little appears to be generally known, but which is often referred to in certain out-of-the-way lines of study. I refer to the pentacle, or triple triangle, the pentalpha of Pythagoras, the formulator of a celebrated system of philosophy, the basal idea of which is that all things sprang from numbers. A representation of it in its simple form is given herewith. On inspection, it will be observed that the figure has five arms, or points, five double triangles, with five acute angles within and five obtuse ones without; so that, if five-a number made up of the first even (2) and the first odd one (3)—be possessed of the virtue which the occult philosophers have asserted, the pentacle must have much. It is, in fact, the famous legendary key of Solomon, which has played a remarkable rôle in history. Tennyson, one of the few well-known authors by whom reference to it is made, speaks of it when he makes one of his characters (Katie) thoughtlessly draw (it can be done through one stroke)

"With her slender-pointed foot,

FIG. 27.-THE PENTACLE.

Some figure like a wizard's pentagram,
On garden gravel."2

1 One was not regarded as a number.

"The Brook.

I have said that little is generally known about the pentacle. Here is some evidence: Ruskin defines it to be "a five-pointed star, or a double-triangle ornament, the symbol of the trinity "-a wrong definition, but not quite as bad as that given in Mollett's handsome work, to wit: "A figure formed of two triangles, intersected so as to form a six-pointed star."2 The opinion is expressed by Bayard Taylor that the magical powers attributed to it could be explained by the fact that, being made up of three triangles, it was a "triple symbol of the trinity." This may be true, but it was regarded as possessing mysterious powers long before Christianity originated.

A common mistake-the one evidently made by Mollett-of even learned writers (as, for example, Oliver1 and Fairholt") is to confound the pentacle with the seal of Solomon (called also the shield of David), which consists of two equilateral triangles so arranged as to form a six-pointed star.

By the German writers on magic and kindred subjects, the pentacle is often called Drudenfuss,—that is, wizard's foot, a term which Mackey takes to be a corruption of the word for Druid's foot, by which people it was in use, being often worn, as a symbol of deity, on their sandals. As Bayard Taylor, however, says: "Drud, from the same root as Druid, was the old German word for wizard." In Mr. Blake's interesting book," a representation of a very old coin is given, on which the mystic figure appears.

Art Culture, p. 468. New York, 1874.

2 Dictionary of Words used in Art and Archæology. Boston, 1882. 3 In his notes to Faust.

The Pythagorean Triangle. London, 1875.

Dictionary of Terms in Art.

Encyclopædia of Freemasonry. Philadelphia, 1875.

'Astronomical Myths. London, 1877.