COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE HEALTH SCIENCES STANDARD HX64095967 R135.W68 Medical men in the t iiii-Mrc liobert N;Willso.rL ?1.D, RECAP ifil \ \ >^ ^ NNS^ Columbia S^ntbetjSittp itttheCitpofBetoJ^ork Epffrpttrp Sithrarg MEDICAL MEN IN THE TIME OF CHRIST BY ROBERT N. WILLSON, M. D. PHILADELPHIA The Sunday School Times Company IQIO ^"Yy^j?..^ I <- ^^^ J-\. -'~' • Copyright, 1910, by Robert N. Willson, Jr. DEDICATION AND PREFACE Some knowledge has been had and some use made of the gift of healing since time and man joined fellowship. Vegetable and the lower animal life, the grass of the field and the birds of the air, all preceded man upon the earth. Decay and repair were probably eons old among primitive living forms when God called Adam into being. Modern medicine is simply a development by man of the essential principles of Nature's resistance against the use and abuse of life's busy day. At some point disease entered the stage astride of sin. Reestablishment by medica- ments has therefore succeeded never, and never will be successful, in the hands of him who depends solely upon human agencies for the world's cure. Fire will refuse to burn unless kept clean, or if fed only coal when thirsty for a draught of air. 3 Dedication and Preface Before Moses, and ages before the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and the Assyrians, God was famil- iar with every detail of medical science that man will discover in the unfolding of time. Stage by stage, as we have grown from cell to sentient being, from a creature dominated by reason to one that is making room for love, He has led us, very slowly and with great patience, toward an eternity in which there shall be no more curse, and from which death and disease shall have vanished away. Moses and the Law seem to have constituted the first day in God's moral and physical sani- tation of the world. Sin was then the great public enemy. Jesus Christ in His capacity as the Great Physician constitutes the second glorious day. Selfishness and self-seeking on the part of humankind have postponed its high noon. The last and brightest dawn will break when the Father Himself shall have wiped away all tears; when "the great voice of much people in heaven" shall have witnessed that He is ever round about them that fear Him. One of His agencies has lived in medicine and medical men, who have been privileged to 4 Dedication and Preface render the way more smooth in a world made sorry by the restiveness and sinning of human children unwilling to trust and obey. The science of healing has precluded many a disaster otherwise recognizable only when beyond con- trol. The history of its practise lays emphasis upon prevention rather than cure. Illumined by the personality of Christ, the art of heal- ing must take on a new fascination and com- pelling interest for those to whom that is whole- some and winsome which He held dear. In no other department of professional ac- tivity is there such physical drudgery, such mental tire and discouragement, and such a need for an abiding faith in the good that lies deep in the hearts of one's fellow-men, lest there grow apace a cynicism that shall cause even charity to become cold. The doctor knows both the warmth of gratitude and affec- tion, and the heartlessness of commercialism and neglect. Yet he loves his work, and in no realm of science are there to be found more loyal, devoted followers of Christ, that Friend of all who need, than among medical men. In an attempt to sketch the doctor of Christ's 5 Dedication and Preface day it has been found necessary to outline his development from antiquity. In so doing a brief monograph has outgrown itself into a little book. Yet if the result shall aid a single student of medicine, or of humanity as such, to a more perfect understanding of His environ- ment and purpose, or in coming into closer personal touch with the Master Physician, the author will consider that his effort has been of some avail. It is inscribed to the Great Physician, who is still spending Himself lavishly upon the salva- tion of every life that yields itself to His all- power and skill, and from whom goes virtue to every needy soul that touches His garment's hem. 1708 Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 6 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Review of Medical History 9 II. Lay Conditions Surrounding Medical Men Before and In the Time of Christ ... 43 III. The Asklepian Temples of Health .... 61 IV. Luke the Physician 91 V. The Master Physician 117 REVIEW OF MEDICAL HISTORY Of what sort was the doctor of Jesus' time ? Was he Jew or Gentile? Where educated? What was his station in society ? Had his prac- tise more to do with medicine, priestcraft, or magic? These questions are often asked. Never has there been received a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Little has been written of medical life at this period, and the lack of definite information at first glance seems com- plete. In order to appreciate the conditions sur- rounding medical men at or near the time of Christ's birth and ministry, it will be necessary first of all to examine the history of ancient times to ascertain the environment from which the doctor of Christ's day grew. Whether the earliest medical knowledge found light in Egypt, or among the Hindoos, or even in old China, cannot now be determined. It may have found birth among the primitive 9 Medical History Phoenicians on the lower Euphrates. Their migration to Syria about 2400 B. C. would have very early planted the seed of medical knowledge in Canaan. We have every reason to believe that the Hindoos at a very early time were well abreast with the most advanced med- ical teaching and practise. The Hindoo Nir- dana, or Diagnosis, is not only very old, but very modern in its principles and in its teach- ings. Their Dra\7abhidhana, or materia med- ica, is a voluminous work. There are also a number of works on the Chikitsa, or the med- ical treatment of disease. It pays careful attention to the rules of hygiene, the diet being regulated, proper exercise and fresh air endorsed, and simple medicinal agencies rec- ommended. The Ayur Veda comprises the ancient Hindoo medical writings of deepest worth and reliability, and is supposed to be the work of Brahma. China also dates her medicine, which is to- day very primitive, back indefinitely for many centuries. Few physicians or laymen realize the practical advances in Egyptian medical knowledge and 10 Medical History skill as early as 3500 B. C. From the Berlin, Leyden, Westcar, Kahun, and Passalaqua papyri we have found access to and uncovered a mine of information regarding the very early medical students and practitioners in Egypt, that antedates both in time and progress any other nation's accomplishment. From the Berlin papyrus we learn that Athothis, the son of Menes, over 6000 years ago wrote in Egypt a book on medicine. Also that Pharaoh Usa- phais recorded his anatomical studies in writ- ing; and that following him, Semti, of the same dynasty, made record of similar investigations. The most definite writing and teaching was done, however, by I-em-hotep, a great physician living in the third Egyptian dynasty (3500 B. C). He was probably the son of Kanofer, an archi- tect, though he is usually spoken of as the son of the supreme god, Ptah. He was a priest of Ra, the Sun-god, and also the head of a society or order of such authority that in time its leader was deified as the God of Medicine. The priests of the land were the physicians, and as hundreds of years later in Greece the asklepia formed the centers of medical prac- II Medical History tise and teaching, so their progenitors, the temples of I-em-hotep, sent their influence and doctrines forth throughout the world. I-em- hotep was a "physician, minister of the king, writer, architect, alchemist, astronomer." He was evidently of a purely humanitarian spirit, with an eye to the good of the public, healing where possible, studying cases always, and "giving peaceful sleep to the restless and suffer- ing." In some temple not yet recognized he and his physician-priests held themselves at the disposal of the ailing populace. Egyptians came from all directions to Memphis to con- sult I-em-hotep, to a temple evidently dedi- cated to him, from which went out priests who founded many other temples in other localities, just as they migrated years after from the Hieron at Epidaurus to found new asklepia in other parts of Greece. Beside the practise of very advanced principles of hygiene, and the use of a large materia medica, his school also employed magic, and claimed to be able to protect the souls of the dead from their enemies after they had parted from their bodies. The Egyptians embalmed the bodies, and removed 12 Medical History and preserved the internal organs in special receptacles, perhaps for post-mortem study. Several hundred of their prescriptions have been preserved. There are many references to a primitive knowledge of the blood circula- tion in the medical papyri. I-em-hotep be- lieved that some of the vessels contained blood, some mucus, and some air. A great portion of the knowledge that has been ascribed to Hippocrates was in the possession of I-em-hotep, and much of it is now in our hands in his papyri, dated centuries before the Greeks began to travel to Egypt to absorb the principles of medicine. He treated tuberculosis, plague, anemia, leprosy, and described these conditions in medical papyri which have been unearthed in a sealed casket from the supposed locality of his temple. Few of the minor temples of I-em- hotep remain in a state of preservation. One small one at Philae dates back to Ptolemy IV, though it carries a Greek inscription of the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes, 200 B. C. In the museum at Cairo, Caton states, there is a stele from the sepulcher of Shemkhetnankh, a phy- sician practising during the 5th dynasty, who 13 Medical History was the chief of the Royal Hospital of that time. There are many indications that medical knowl- edge of a primitive type may be traced to the beginning of human existence. Joseph testified to the professional activity of the medical men who cared for and embalmed his father, Israel, about 1700 B. C. (Genesis 50:2). The Papyrus-Ebers was discovered in 1872- 74 in a tomb in Thebes. It was written in the i6th century B. C. at Sais, in Egypt, and con- sists of medical writings purporting to be those of the god Thoth. There are no pages of this manuscript, portraying the medical life of the times. In 1570 B. C, or thereabouts, Moses was in school. If we are to believe Manetho, quoted by Josephus, Moses then became a priest of Osiris at Heliopolis (On of the Bible), under the name of Osarsiph, later changed to Moses. (Against Apias, Book I, sec. 26.) Egypt, under the Pharaohs, was at the height of her glory. Her hieroglyphic name was Khami, from which we have the words alchemy and chemistry. (Dr. Grant Bey, Ancient Egyp. Medicine, Internat. Med. Congress, 1894.) From papyri 14 Medical History written during the period 1550 to 1547 B. C, we learn again not only of the existence, but of the phenomenal strides of a definite medical science. Among others one Biblos, an oculist practising in Phoenicia, has given us many interesting data. The priests appear still to be the medical practitioners of the time. In the doctor-priesthood were found specialists in the treatment of the diseases of each and all of the important organs of the body. When any one fell ill he sent a description of his ail- ment to the temple, and there was sent a physician by experience and training adapted to the treatment of that particular case. There is left no room for doubt that the tendency to specialize was then, as now, much overdone, nor that in many instances the patient suffered for lack of a thorough preliminary study from the standpoint of the whole man, in place of a primary as well as final inspection from the narrow viewpoint and the awkward angle of an eye or an ear. Legs were amputated, the bladder was opened for stone, ophthalmic surgery was frequent, cupping and blood-let- ting were the order of the day. Teeth were filled 15 Medical History with gold, and artificial teeth were constructed which have survived in mummies until the pres- ent. Opium, strychnia, squills, and other of our latter-day remedies were known and treasured as means of treatment and cure. The Jewish Bible omits all mention of drugs, and the Talmud deals with very few. Living as the Jews did in the midst of Egpytian poly- pharmacy, however, their healers must have been conversant with many, if not all, of the remedies employed, and have used them during their wanderings through the desert. Manetho, through Josephus, takes particular pains (Apion, Book I, sec. 26) to inform us that "he (Osarsiph, Moses) made such laws as these and many more such as were mainly opposite to the customs of the Egyptians." A striking and intentional contrast is that between the humiliating failure of the Chief Priests, or medical Magi, of Pharaoh's court and the inevitable success of the God of Moses and Aaron (Exodus 7 and 8). Manetho's statement may or may not be taken to indicate his opin- ion that even the sanitary and hygienic laws as laid down in Leviticus were contrary to 16 Medical History the Egyptian teaching. Whatever his convic- tion, we must conclude on the basis of our more recent knowledge of the ancient Egyptian sani- tary science that Moses' law, at least in its medi- cal provisions, harmonizes very closely with that which he must have learned from the Egyptians while serving as a priest of Osiris at Heliopolis. It is interesting to note that both among the Egyptians and the Hebrews their accoucheurs were women (Exodus i). There is definite evidence of an acquaintance with the simpler Egyptian medicinal agencies in our own Bible, and more than one instance can be cited of their employment. An illustra- tion is the famous treatment of King Hezekiah's glandular ailment by Isaiah (2 Kings 20 : 7) by means of a poultice of figs. Ezekiel de- scribes the management of fractures in general more tersely and in terms more strictly to the purpose than are heard in many a twentieth- century clinic (Ezek. 30:21). Solomon is said to have written an elaborate dissertation upon the treatment of disease. No student of medicine or of social economy who has read the plain doctrines of Proverbs 7 and 9 can 17 Medical History question the depth and breadth of his med- ical equipment and his sane knowledge of the affairs of the time. His warning that physical disease is the twin sister of immorality is more clearly sounded than we hear it to-day. He recognizes with unerring precision and with no show of false modesty the mortality that follows the trail of the public man or woman, rich or poor. "He knoweth not that the dead are there; That her guests are in the depths of Sheol." (Proverbs 9 : 18.) "She hath cast down many wounded: Yea, all her slain are a mighty host. Her house is the way to Sheol, Going down to the chambers of death." (Proverbs 7 : 26, 27.) Like King Mithridates, of a much later date, Solomon not only was a student of the sci- ence of healing, but made practical use of his discoveries. Striking above all else are the wonderful in- telligence and permanence of the sanitary prin- ciples prescribed by Jehovah for the protection and preservation of the Children of Israel. Moses takes to himself no credit for the concep- 18 Medical History tion of the rules of hygiene and sanitation of the Hebrew camp. He states explicitly that they were words out of God's mouth. It detracts not a whit from their divine inspiration that Moses learned them in Egypt as a heathen priest. In the beginning was assuredly no disease. Moses attributes its appearance to sin. For its control the Jewish God provided certain hygienic measures that convict the modern world of conceit in its assumption that it has devised anything medically new. Just as the Roman arch is now known to have been old in Assyria before Romulus was born, so we meditate with reverence upon the divine con- ception of sanitary science before the world began. Careful discrimination between the various types of disease is laid down as the first essential. The study of the given case must extend over days before the final opinion be given. Next comes the necessity of isolating the individual patient in order to safeguard the health of the community. Finally, there is a noteworthy and full recognition of the danger of exposure to infectious disease, especially of contact with the discharges from an open 19 Medical History sore, or with articles of daily use that have been contaminated by one suffering from such an ailment. Thorough disinfection of both the patient and his belongings is required of the Jews by the God who watches over their pilgrimage. When necessary for the sake of efficacy, emphasis was laid upon the disinfec- tion to the point of burning all suspected ma- terials with fire (Lev. 13-15). God, through the Hebrews, was thus the first promulgator of sanitary science, and the principles laid down by Him have never been, and cannot to- day be called in question by the greatest or the wisest in the school of modern medicine. He has simply led us a little farther on our way, and allowed a little deeper insight into His reason and purpose, with a view to the further- ance of our own safeguarding and control. Fire still remains the only certain disinfectant. Isolation is the only certain method of stamping out contagious disease. Detailed study of the patient gives, as it gave then, the only safeguard against error costly alike to physician and sufferer. Time, and care, and affectionate interest in the individual man (not case) were 20 Medical History prescribed by Jehovah as indispensable to suc- cessful diagnosis and treatment. They re- main the surgeon's most valued instruments, and the physician's most practical means of cure. THE STANDING AND INFLUENCE OF MEDI- CAL MEN IN THE COMMUNITY Prior to the subjection of the Jews by the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Romans, the priest was the physician among the Chosen People as well as among their conquerors. Jehovah Himself gave distinction to the profes- sion of medicine when He proclaimed to the Jews, "I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Exod. 15 : 26). He also hints at the endless character of their task of physical and moral sanitation, for in the same connection He promises the sons of earth immunity from disease so long, and presumably only so long, as they "do that which is right in his sight." In characterizing Himself as the Father of Healing He seems to sanctify and ennoble a calling that received a second endorsement 21 Medical History from heaven when Christ assumed the r61e of Physician, not only of human hearts but of the physical infirmities of mankind. In the light of this knowledge the modern medical diploma might well give secondary importance to the Hippocratic influence, and emphasize to him who enters upon the life of a doctor the fact that his privilege is divine. Comment has already been made upon the fact that the Egyptian ancestors of the mod- ern physician came of a kingly race. On studying Jewish history it soon becomes evident that neither the time, the environment, nor the course of events was favorable to the development of Jewish medical science. Even with the knowledge absorbed from the Egypt- ians, and though in possession of the hygienic laws received with the Tables of Stone, still, once in the Promised Land and at ease, history repeated itself, and the nation became in all respects degenerate. The priesthood became corrupt, and being also the physicians of the nation, the priests degraded their double calling. For centuries before Christ there is little heard of medicine or of medical men among either 22 Medical History- Jews or Romans. It has already been shown that in Egypt there was a medical science at a very early day, and that Hindustan, or even Assyria, has been thought by some to have been the birthplace of the medical profession. Crude medical theories and practises entered Greece with the coming of her gods and heroes. Apollo, under the name of Paeon, was wor- shiped as the god of health and of disease. Juno was the guardian of the mother at child- birth. Greece knew no concrete medical science, however, until the appearance of Hip- pocrates about 430 B. C. (born 467 ?), at which time Grecian students were already absorbing the medical and other sciences in Egypt and Phoenicia as have ours in past years in Ger- many, Austria, and France. With the Trojan war (1183 B. C. ?) appeared in Grecian literature the names of the first actual medical practitioners. Melampus, the shepherd-healer, is largely clothed in myth. Chiron, the so-called Centaur; was the first to be endorsed by any semblance of authority. He is said to have been a prince of Thessaly, especially skilled in medicine and music, a 23 Medical History knowledge of the art of healing then being considered essential in the education of men of rank. Chiron instructed the Argonauts in medical matters; he also taught the heroes around Troy. His friend and pupil, Asklepios (iEscula- pius), followed him, and was the first of the Greeks to devote himself exclusively to medi- cine as a science. He was in no sense the dis- coverer of medicine, however. Of the fact that the early Greeks did not regard medical science as originating with themselves, we have the following record: In the Pseudo-Apuleian writings Hermes in speaking to Asklepios says, " Thine an- cestor, the first discoverer of medicine, hath a temple consecrated to him in the Libyan mountains near the Nile, where his body lies, while his better part, the spiritual essence, hath returned to the heavens, whence he still by his divine power helps feeble men as he formerly on earth succoured them by his art as a physi- cian." (Pseudo-Apul., Asklepios C. 37, quoted by and from Caton.) Asklepios is reputed to have been an illegitimate child, found in the 24 Medical History fields by a shepherd, and placed for safe- keeping in the care of Chiron. He was named after his death the "God of Physic," and his descent was traced by his followers from Apollo. The two sons of Asklepios, Machaon and Podalirius, followed him in the practise of medicine, or rather of military surgery. Both were famous in the siege of Troy. The internal diseases did not call so much at that time for medical as magical skill. They were looked upon, as in Jewry, as punish- ments from God. Wounds were glorious. And yet internal ailments were removed not only by exorcism and charm. That the doctor in his purely medical capacity was actively in evidence even in the earliest days of Greek professional life, Pindar proves by his lines in the Pythian Ode (III): " Some spells brought back to life; These drank the potion plan'd; for these he bound With drugs the aching wound; Some leaped to strength beneath the helpful knife." For a long time the practise of medicine remained by hereditary control exclusively in the family of Asklepios. Finally, however, it 25 Medical History appears to have passed into the charge of the Asklepiadas, who were simply the priests of the temples, and not necessarily the descendants of the "God of Physic." The practise of medicine appears at this time sharply differentiated from surgery. The temples were as truly hospitals and dispen- saries as places of worship. Many of those who were treated came from afar, and many paid well for the services rendered. They were treated by mental impression, by a dietary regime, by hydrotherapy, and by means of climate. The temples were supposedly, though not always, placed in sites noted for health- bringing qualities. Votive tablets were erected in the temples by those healed. These tablets described the progress of individual cases, and the means of cure employed. In this way they proved effective and permanent distributors of medical and sanitary knowledge. Of the character of medical life several cen- turies following the activity of the two sons of Asklepios we have little assurance. Finally, however, two famous rival medical schools — those of Cos and Cnidus — came into view. 26 Medical History The former was composed of the Dogmatists, or those who followed the philosophic study of medicine. The latter constituted the school of the Empirics, who collected mere facts and figures for use in their practise. The sixth century before Christ marks the first real scientific progress in Grecian medicine as such. The functions of the body were studied, the nature and origin of disease in- vestigated, and the means of cure experimented with. Pythagoras was the first practical physician of Grecian history. He was born 582 B. C. He traveled and studied in Egypt (22 years), Chaldea, and Eastern Asia, report says, and during this period studied anatomy, perhaps in Egyptian mortuaries, also by dissecting ani- mals, far in advance of his day. He founded and directed the famous school at Crotona, to which students came from all parts of Greece and Italy. He was evidently a practical thinker and doer in a mythical, mystical, magical, unpractical age. He was the founder of the famous Pythagorean school or society. He was also the last of the 27 Medical History Greek sages to employ hieroglyphics and to use the ancient language. He first divided the year into 365 days. His school of disciples embraced a philosophic doctrine of great beauty, uniting God, the universe, time, and eternity in a manner which by its newness and freshness fascinated the growing youth of his time. The school was persecuted, however, and finally scattered widecast. Restrictions being relaxed, the secrets of the order were divulged and our little knowledge of their rites and beliefs made possible. The members were called periodic or ambulant physicians, because they instituted the practise of visiting patients in their homes, as contrasted with the Asklepiadae who prac- tised in and from the temples only. Empe- docles was the most famous disciple of this school. His followers became bold and then dishonest, and in consequence the Pythagorean Society disintegrated while its master still lived. Following him came Democrites the anatomist, and Heraclitus, both distinguished physicians of their time. Then Acron the philosopher, and Herodicus who was the inventor of gymnastic exercises designed for 28 Medical History use in curing medical conditions, and the establisher of schools for the teaching of medical gymnastics throughout Greece. Plato found it necessary to reprove him for prolonging to a great length the lives of the aged. Hippocrates (born about 460 B. C. in the island of Cos) was called by his contemporaries as well as by his successors the Father of Medicine. He was the second of seven mem- bers of a family of this name. Humanly speaking, he originated many of the theories upon which medical science has acted and de- veloped. Little is known of his life, educa- tion, or rise to distinction. His father, Hera- cleides, and Herodicus were his medical teachers. He is supposed to have descended on the male side directly from Asklepios through a line of practitioners of medicine. He traveled much in foreign countries in order to observe and learn; also in response to calls from prominent people, and to com- bat epidemics. He was a great teacher, and his essential doctrine was the value of the accurate observation of phenomena. He de- scribed individual cases, and watched the 29 Medical History effect of his treatment. He gave his pupils definite pictures of disease, and suggested methods that are still employed. He was the first to hint at physiology, and believed that the first function of the physician is to assist Nature in mending the ailment through the discovery and removal of the cause. He used many of our purgatives, diuretics, sudorifics, he drew blood, he practised cupping, and used ointments, liniments, and plasters, and laid stress upon a sane regulation of the diet. He is supposed to have died 377 B. C. at the age of S^. Much that has been attributed to Hippocrates is really due the Egyptians in the way of credit for early scientific investigation and knowledge. With this granted, however, he marks an epoch in the practise of medicine without which the profession would enjoy a less honorable distinction and name. Draco and Thessalus, the two sons of Hippocrates, founded the first new medical sect, from which grew a school founded upon rational ideas. Plato (born 429 B. C.) and Aristotle (born 384 B. C.) took more than a passing interest in medicine. Plato studied the physiological func- 30 Medical History tions of the body, and his pupil, Aristotle, was the first writer upon comparative anatomy and physiology. The latter was given $155,000 by Alexander for the prosecution of research work. The School of Alexandria was founded about 300 B. C. by the Ptolemies. It possessed a famous library containing 600,000 manuscripts upon general philosophy and upon medicine. The science of healing was diligently cultivated in this school. Pergamos also boasted of a library containing 200,000 volumes. Erosistratus and Herophilus (300 B.C.) were both famous as Alexandrian anatomists. They dissected the human body, and the government gave to them the bodies of criminals to further their studies. About this time the practise of surgery and medicine was gradually differentiated into two distinct fields. There were, in fact, three divisions in the theory of practise: dietetics, or general medicine; pharmacy, including drugs and minor surgery; and surgery. Physi- cians gradually tended to contract their fields of labor after the manner of the Egyptian 31 Medical History School, and especially in the large cities and medical centers, as in the case of Hippocrates at Cos, a distinctively consulting practise oc- casionally brought a prominent physician much revenue. The division of opinion termed the Great Schism now took place, shortly after the founding of the Alexandrian School. All physicians associated themselves with either the School of Dogmatists (theorists), or with the Empirics (practitioners) who laid special weight upon the phenomena in the given case. None of the writings of the Empirics remain. Such was the Grecian medical life, and in this widespread fashion did Greece influence medical practise. Notwithstanding the contemporaneous de- velopment of medical knowledge in Egypt and Greece, Pliny tells us that "for six hundred years Rome was without physicians." While the statement is not to be taken literally, of course, it is none the less strongly suggestive of the decadence of medical practise in the Eternal City. War had supplanted all other science. The practise of medicine had indeed fallen into such disrepute, in part owing to the 32 Medical History severe and unsuccessful methods employed (especially by one Arcagathus, about 200 B. C.)» that the citizens at last forbade its continuance and banished all the professors. When the other sciences were brought from Greece to Rome, medicine was not yet welcome and was therefore delayed in regaining a foothold. A mystical worship of Asklepios was introduced, and for a century the priests conducted what little remained of medical practise in the form of "superstitious rites and ceremonies. '* About 100 B. C. Julius Csesar was born, and in 49 B. C. he gave to the Grecian physicians the freedom of the city. About 96 B. C. As- klepiades of Bithynia, probably in his twenty- second year, came to Rome as a teacher of rhetoric, but was unsuccessful in this line. He turned to medicine, and, both by gentle behavior and judicious handling of his patients and by special medical skill, became very pop- ular and eminent. His most important meas- ures in treatment were diet, exercise, and bath- ing, and (some one has added) "wine, flattery, and indulgence." There is considerable de- bate as to his origin, but it has been the common 33 Medical History belief that he was an emancipated slave, and that in spite of this handicap he attained distinc- tion through his own merit and the friendship of Pompey and Crassus, and was in due course given the privilege of citizenship in Rome and in six cities in Asia and Greece. Vilas ^ denies this, and cites evidence to prove that he came of notable parents (his father, Theodosios), and had two distinguished brothers (v. Vilas, iEsklepiades, p. i8). He died about 29 B. C, in his ninety-first year. Following Asklepiades came Themison, his pupil, who founded the so-called Methodic Sect. Then Antonius Musa, who, though a freedman of Augustus Caesar, was publicly honored with a gold ring and a bronze statue. Thessalus followed in the reign of Nero, then Soranus and Aurelianus, the surgeons Helio- dorus and Antyllus, all before or in Trajan's reign, then Cleanthes, Leonidas, Rufus of Ephesus, and Marinus. All of the earlier Greeks practising medi- cine in Rome were probably freedmen, if not slaves. In 49 B. C, as already stated, Julius * Strabo, Geographica, Vol. II, cap. 566, p. 795. 34 Medical History Caesar freed all the Greeks, and with their emancipation the medical profession came out of bondage into its own. Cornelius Celsus was born in Rome about the time of Christ's birth, and was probably the first freeborn Roman physician. All before him were either slaves or from the lower stratum of society. The fact that their services commanded an honor- arium had relegated the physician and the surgeon to the unpopular class of artisans that strove for money gain. The trades and man- ufactures in Rome were also in the hands of the slave-class up to this time. Although Celsus is supposed rather to have been a stu- dent of the science of medicine than a thorough- going practitioner, his writings have made him famous, and his medical knowledge ap- pears to have been far in advance of his time. Aretaeus also was prominent in the develop- ment of medicine and pathology at this period (A. D. 50-90). Notwithstanding the inevitable comparison with his contemporary, Celsus, he was termed "the incomparable Aretaeus." It remains simply to mention Pliny, the natural- ist of Rome (A. D. 23-79) ; also Dioscorides, 35 Medical History the Greek (about A. D. loo), the author of a treatise on materia medica. Finally, Clau- dius Galen (A. D. 130), the most famous of all, a Greek of rank, who settled in Rome and restored to the profession the distinction that belonged to it, and its rightful place in the esteem of the people. His name passed as authority in many directions for years; his word was held to be unimpeachable. Beside being the author of several hundred treatises, his knowledge of pathologic anatomy (the anatomy of the tissues in disease) was aston- ishingly far in advance of his day. One of his admirers said of him, "His fame can only perish with the science itself." Even his religious beliefs came startlingly near Chris- tianity. During all of this period of national silence, the medical knowledge which the Jewish people inherited from the Fathers must have been ever in lively use. When conquered by Rome the doings of the nation became a sealed book. The Jewish scholars, however, became active and schools arose for "the preservation of the law." All the "sciences" were taught, and 36 Medical History among them that of medicine and healing. The knowledge of medical practise displayed in the Talmud is proof enough that the Jews were well abreast of the time in their medical equipment. There are references to, but no definite record of, Jewish practitioners in Rome prior to the close of the first century, other than of the Essenes and the Therapeutse; and of them only as they wandered from their homes in Alexandria and Judea. Neither was Luke, the disciple of Jesus Christ, a native Jew, nor did he practise his profession in Rome. The very circumstance, however, of his com- panionship and medical attendance upon Paul would be sufficient proof of the existence of accredited Jewish physicians in and near Jeru- salem, were we not certain that Luke was an Asiatic Greek. His choice of classical words and terms which are in the Greek so strikingly medical is sufficient in itself to designate his calling. His descriptions and case narratives are also those of the physician. The term "beloved physician" (Col. 4:14) speaks for his type as a man. We find in the Apoc- rypha, written in the second century before 37 Medical History Christ, more than one hint not only to the effect that there were Jewish doctors active in medical work, but witnessing the esteem and regard in which they were held by their people, in strong contrast with the Roman disregard of medical men and their consignment to the slave class. In Ecclesiasticus 38 : i, 2 ap- pears the following tribute of affection and respect : "Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him : for the Lord hath created him. " For of the most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honour of the king.'* The third book of the Mishna (Talmud) none the less takes exception to the physician, and teaches that " all ass-drivers are wicked, camel-drivers are honest, sailors are pious, physicians are destined for hell, and butchers are company for Amalek." At the close of the first century we find Rabbi Ishmael, a physician, obtaining the body of a woman for dissection, preparing the skeleton by boiling, and giving the number of bones as 252 (200 being the correct number). Chanina 38 Medical History (died A. D. 205), following shortly after, is known to have made and inserted artificial teeth. Rab (died A. D. 247) also was a deep student of anatomy, and spent much of his substance in obtaining subjects for dissection. Samuel (died A. D. 254), a friend of Rab, was a prac- titioner, an accomplished accoucheur, an ocu- list, and was well honored for his knowledge of astronomy. When we reach the fourth century the Jewish physicians are many in number, and we have already passed out of the obscurity of the dark medical age. The Talmud was completed in the fifth century. It is a combination of intelligence in medical matters and of the grossest superstition and childish belief in nostrum, amulet and charm. " For bleeding of the nose," says this learned book, " let a man be brought to a priest named Levi, and let the name Levi be written back- wards. If there be not a priest, get a layman, who is to write backwards 'Ana pipi Shila bar Sumki,' or * Taam dli bemi ceseph, taam dli bemi pagam; ' or let him take a root of grass, and the cord of an old bed, and paper, and saffron, and the red part of the inside of a palm 39 Medical History tree, and let him burn them together, and let him take some wool, and twist two threads, and dip them in vinegar, and roll them in ashes, and put them into his nose." The Talmud released a Jew at once from any oath sworn to a Gentile. It permitted a Jewish physician "to heal Gentiles only for the sake of the fee, or for the practise of medi- cine, but it was not allowed to save their lives in seasons of danger." On the other hand the Talmud recognizes rabies; it describes jaundice and ascribes it to retention of bile; an emetic is endorsed as the best remedy for nausea; and in many ways the book indicates that the knowledge obtained in the time of Moses had never been lost, though buried for a time in Roman captivity. 40 c - o S U a; II LAY CONDITIONS SURROUNDING MEDICAL MEN BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF CHRIST For two hundred years prior to Christ's birth there had been wars and rumors of wars, conquests and captivities, followed by freedom and then resubjugation. Especially was this true in the history of the remarkable Jewish band that had always held an isolated position and had kept itself so proudly distinct in w^hat- soever nation it was by stress of circumstances forced to sojourn. Following the prophets, Malachi being the last (400 B. C), there was a considerable period of political and economic disturbance and unrest. Religious persecution formed the pretext for more than one war. Jewish life and manners had touched and in- fluenced nearly every powerful nation. Hardly a notable world power had failed in return to oppress and thereby to educate the Jews. Under Assyrian rule (734 B. C), then under 43 Conditions Surroundlne Medical Men £> the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians again, the Syrians, and finally under Roman rule, Hebrewdom learned the ever- wearisome but useful lessons of patience and perseverance. About 626 B. C. the Assyrian Empire collapsed with the death of Asurbani- pal. From 610 until 604 B. C. the Jews acknowledged subjection to the Egyptians un- der Necho. When in 604 B. C. Nebuchad- nezzar defeated the Egyptians, not only a por- tion of the African Empire, but Syria itself, came under his sway. The Babylonian cap- tivity followed, until in 537 the Jews were suffered by Cyrus the Elamite, who had established the new Persian Empire, to return to their own land. As a recognition of his friendship, though rebellion seethed on their every side they remained loyal to "the great king," and only left the dominion of his suc- cessors when Alexander the Greek brought about the fall of the Persian monarchy. His victories at Granicus in 334 B. C. and at Issus in 333, and the fall of Damascus, Sidon, and Tyre in 332, were followed by a rapid march upon Jerusalem with the intent of 44 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men exacting a severe penalty for the refusal on the part of the Jews to submit to his commands from afar. Greeted, however, outside the gates of the city by Jaddua the high priest, in his apparel of hyacinth and gold, Alexander re- called a dream warning him of such a meeting, and picturing the venerable priest as promising him mastery and success in his coming cam- paign. He spared Jerusalem and gave the Jews privileges they had not enjoyed under any of their former conquerors and captors. Under Alexander, Hellenism and the Greek language became almost universal. Three years after his death, in 323 B. C, one of his generals, Laomedon, who had succeeded to the control of Palestine, was defeated by Ptolemy Soter, King of Egypt, who captured Jerusalem and transported thousands of the Jews to his own land. Under the Ptolemies the Jews were a peaceful, happy people. In the main, the Jews of the "Dispersion" spoke the Greek language, and for their benefit as well as for the library of Ptolemy Philadelphus the Septuagint version of the Scriptures was pre- 45 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men t> pared. Thus Alexandria in Egypt and Jeru- salem in Judea became the two active centers of Judaism. Of the two, the Egyptian city fostered the more progressive Jewish life. The new Judaism di\ided itself into the sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the former typifying the extremity of ritualistic worship, and the latter representing the overgrowth of Hellen- ism. Later, the Essenes held a position of some importance as a third religious and semi- medical sect. These Essenes or Essaeans made their appearance in the second century before Christ. They formed an order, as contrasted with the more strictly political parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They are first men- tioned by Josephus in 150 B. C. They num- bered about 4,000, living as a community wdth respect to goods and money, with one purse, and partaking of common meals. They were ultra- religious, very moral, abstemious and simple in their habits and tastes. They were temper- ate in all things. Their chief occupation was agriculture, though the crafts of every kind found representatives among them. They wore white at all times. They condemned 46 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men marriage. The priests prepared the food, and asked God's blessing thereupon before and after every meal. They were also noted for their powers of healing, and for a considerable time represented the active medical life among the Jews. Little that is definite is recorded of them, and they have faded away from the world's history almost as completely as if they had never existed. In 198 B. C. Antiochus the Great, one of the descendants of Seleucus (a famous Alex- andrian general), captured Jerusalem from the Ptolemies. He gave the Jews many liber- ties and privileges, and transported many thousand families from Babylon to Lydia and Phrygia in Asia Minor, giving them full freedom and land for themselves and their posterity. His son, Seleucus Philopater, on the contrary, sacked Jerusalem and laid the Temple waste. In 170 B. C. another Antiochus (Epiphanes) ravished the city with war, slay- ing thousands, and selling many more into slavery. By him the Hebrew Temple was dedicated to Jupiter, and the deliberate at- tempt made to extirpate the Jewish religion 47 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men and to destroy utterly the Jewish Bible. Twice he ruthlessly crushed Jewish rebellions, in which 80,000 of the devoted people were slain and 10,000 taken captive. Death was pro- claimed the penalty for practising the sacred rite of circumcision, for obeying the man- dates of the Mosaic law, or for worshiping the God of their fathers. Many of the Jews fled to the wilderness and lived in caves in order to preserve their sacred Scripture and their very lives. At last arose the Chasidim, a party in Jerusalem that pledged itself to final support of the Mosaic law in opposition to the Hellenistic school. The national loyalty and temper took fire, and under Mattathias first, and later under the leadership of his five splendid sons, freedom and Jerusalem were re- won, with the right to worship for a little time according to the custom of their fathers. Judas, the greatest of the five Maccabaean brothers, organized a well-disciplined force out of a city rabble, and in 165 B. C. drove the Syrians out of Judea, and rededicated the Temple to Jehovah. Jonathan and Simon Maccabaeus followed him in command, then Hyrcanus and 48 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men Aristobulus, all of the same family, and all equally successful in safeguarding the rights of the Jewish people. The grandsons of the last named engaged in a fierce quarrel over their respective authorities, and referred the arbitra- tion of the matter to Pompey, the Roman general, who had just captured Damascus. He made no immediate decision, but in 63 B. C. himself appeared before the walls of Jerusalem and entered the Temple. This he spared, however, and placed Hyrcanus II in the position of high priest. Hyrcanus was weak and lazy. In 47 B. C, a short time before the death of Julius Caesar (44 B. C), Herod Antipater, the Idumean, had been appointed one of two tetrarchs to rule over Judea. Civil war broke out in Rome and Antipater was left very much to his own free will as to the discharge of his duties. He rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and did much for the re-establish- ment of the city. In 43 B. C. he was poisoned, and his son Herod, whom he had appointed governor of Galilee, ruled in his stead. In 40 B. C. the Parthians took Jerusalem, and Herod was forced to flee to Italy. Having won the 49 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men favor of Antony and Octavianus, he was ap- pointed King of Judea by decree of the Senate. In 37 B. C, with the aid of Roman legions, he recaptured Jerusalem and entered on his notable reign of wisdom yoked with fool- ishness, kindness of heart linked to fiendish deviltry, and political sagacity wed to corrupt and sensual practises. Repeated household murder on his own threshold led to his final undoing. "By birth an Idumaean, by pro- fession a Jew, by necessity a Roman, by cul- ture and by choice a Greek," he was at once a powerful and a talented figure, and, as the event showed, one with a splendid, wasted opportunity. He rebuilt the Temple, strength- ened the city walls, erected a wonderful palace on the hill of Zion, and strove with all his might and natural sagacity to cement peaceful rela- tions betw^een his Jewish and Hellenistic sub- jects. He was already a soldier, hunter, states- man, a benefactor of his people. Side by side with his better nature developed that of the tyrant, the cunning intriguer, the murderer of relatives and friends, and the curse of the city which he had begun to bless. His spies were 50 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men everywhere. Lives were forfeited for the crime of standing or meeting together. During his rounds at night many a man was marked for the morrow's doom. He murdered his grand- father-in-law Hyrcanus, his wife Mariamne, her mother Alexandra, his brothers-in-law Aristobulus and Kastobar, also Mariamne's sons, Alexander and Aristobulus. He died at Jericho B. C. 4, four years after Christ's birth. His death found him an object for pity, covered with ulcers and foul sores, the result may be, certainly the retribution, of his open immorality and his life's bestial shame. Some one has remarked that it is little wonder " that Josephus should have omitted to mention the swoop of Herod's soldiers on a few babes at Bethlehem." Herod's ten wives yielded many claimants for the succession to his throne. A formal hearing was given them all at Rome, and only scant recognition was accorded the prayer of the Jews that they be delivered from the Herodian swarm. Archelaus, son of Herod's sixth wife, Malthace, was established ethnarch over Judea, Idumea, and Samaria ; and to Herod Antipas, of the same mother, were given Galilee and Perea. 51 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men Archelaus speedily indulged in such flagrant misrule that he was banished to Gaul, and Judea became part of the prefecture of Syria, under a series of Roman governors. The fifth in this succession was Pontius Pilate, and under him Judea was a Roman province of the second rank. Caligula, during his short reign, removed Herod Antipas, and placed a grandson of Mariamne, Herod Agrippa, in his stead. Claudius, in A. D. 41, gave Agrippa, in addition to the provinces already his, Judea and Samaria, which, with Galilee and Perea, stretched into a domain greater than that of the first Herod. The first Agrippa died in A. D. 44, and Judea again became a Roman province. The second Agrippa (the tetrarch) was placed by the Romans as a spy upon the Jews in Jerusalem. His palace overlooked the market-place of the Temple, and over this center of intrigue he kept diligent watch until the Zealots lifted their walls so high as to ob- struct his view. The crimes of the Zealots soon became intolerable. Throughout the city they favored the cause of revolt by means of the Sicarii, a private band of assassins formed 52 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men with a view to ridding the Jewish people of all individuals who favored a foreign rule. Finally, the priesthood and the nobility appealed to Rome for protection and aid. Florus, the Roman governor, sent a small force to protect the city, which, after seven days of fighting, took the citadel, but was soon forced to capitu- late and was annihilated in an onslaught violat- ing a truce. At this very time a massacre of Jews was taking place in almost every town and village throughout Syria. Cestius, the Prefect, on learning the fate of the Roman soldiery, hurried with his army to the walls of Jerusalem. The Jews were on the point of throwing wide the gates, when, to their astonishment, he with- drew as suddenly as he came. Civil dissensions followed. Finally, in A. D. 70, John of Gis- chala, Simon Bar Gioras, and Eleazar, each heading a faction, engaged in a triangular civil war. In this year Titus began his march on Jerusalem from Caesarea. He destroyed the city and sent 97,000 of the people away as slaves. Galilee, Judea, and Idumea were laid waste. The markets of Rome were filled with Jewish slaves. Of those over seventeen years 53 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men who survived, all were sent to the mines of Egypt, to the gladiatorial arena for the shows, or to be sacrificed in combat with the wild beasts. Little remains to be said of the period during Christ's early years. Under Augustus Caesar there was a brief moment of order, if not of peace, which ended with his death A. D. 14. In this year Tiberius compelled the Senate to beg him to reluctantly accept the Empire. For t^venty-three long years Rome and the Empire wallowed in lust and bloodshed. Caligula (A. D. 37) followed in another wild four years of insane bestiality. Then Claudius (A. D. 41), who, while moulded of better material, was bound hand and foot, mentally and morally, by two intriguing wives, Messalina and Agrippina, one of whom he finally executed, while the other lived to poison him. Nero had been groomed for the occasion, and held ready for the an- nouncement of the old king's death (A. D. 54)^ and presented himself to the soldiers as their sovereign. His frenzied reign is too historical to require more than passing mention. The ashes of Rome had hardly time to cool, when, in A. D. 68, he half robbed himself of life, and 54 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men i> for the other half was assisted by his literary slave, Epaphroditus, who drove home the dag- ger which the craven Emperor had placed at his throat, though he thereupon had found himself too fearful to die. Thus ended the Julian line. With the interment of Nero by the two faithful nurses of his childhood let us drop the curtain upon the long-drawn scene of violence and shame in which the science of healing, with every other art than that of chicanery and vice, had been well-nigh lost to view. Under "the meanest of the Herods" im- morality and the death of scientific inquiry had been natural outgrowths. Nazareth and Gali- lee were in sight of the Mediterranean and within easy hail of the heathen cities, Hippos, Bethsaida Julias, Sepphoris, and Tiberias. In Galilee, on the plain of Esdraelon, encamped thousands of Roman soldiers. The influence of the environment was not for religion, and not for science. From Herod to Nero the amphi- theaters ran with blood. Infanticide was uni- versal, religion was corrupt, the paintings in the temples were obscene. The king's palace was less virtuous than the homes of the degraded, 55 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men Conscience was dead. The Romans believed the Jews to have descended from lepers driven out of Egypt. So little was known of their worship and so little respect was had for them as a people that it was generally reported, and believed by not a few, that they worshiped an "ass," and by others "the clouds." They were regarded as a "nation of cheats and liars." Every one, as well Jew as Roman, was weary of life. Suicide was no longer a crime. On the part of the Jews, and strangely enough in the premises, the Chosen People held an atti- tude of hatred and disdain toward every one. This in spite of the fact that morals among the Jews left no room for pluming or self-conceit as to virtue or innocency. The Apostle Paul (Romans i) astonishes us with his picture of the depraved state of the conquerors of his nation. Seneca speaks in his turn of the Jews as " Gens scleratissima, teterrima, projectissima ad libidinem." Paul reluctantly confirms this arraignment as literally true (Romans 2 : 17-24; 9 : 2-6). Adultery and divorce were with them as truly as with their Roman governors every- day matters. Their precepts and professions 56 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men in these particulars were of the most rigid order, but they were skin deep in sincerity, and in performance a hollow sham. Hear the Apostle: *' Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, " And know est his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law ; " And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, *' An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. "Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? " Thou that sayest a man should not com- mit adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacri- lege? "Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? 57 Conditions Surrounding Medical Men " For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, through you, as it is written." And again: *' I have great heaviness and continual sor- row in my heart. *' For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen ac- cording to the flesh: " Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." And then, hoping still for the future of his people, Paul says, '* For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel." A nation befriended by Julius Caesar, ex- pelled by Claudius, constantly turbulent and rioting, licentious and insinuating, they were both sinned against and sinning. Gentiles and critical Jews, even as we to-day, were in sad and crying need of the cleansing blood of Him whom they hung on a tree. 58 f^i\<] ^ w '-^■ c ■= M Ill THE ASKLEPIAN TEMPLES OF HEALTH By drawing upon semi-mythology we ascer- tain that Asklepios (or iEsculapius, as the Romans had it) was born from the union of Apollo and the nymph Koroni (Coronis) in the Hieron valley, near the site of the present village Koroni, which by its name commemorates the mother of the " God of Physic." The story runs that because of Pluto's complaint that Hades was being rapidly depleted of its inhabitants by the skill of Asklepios and by his cures, the latter was killed by a bolt from Zeus. At the petition of Apollo he was given a place among the stars. Hieron, his mythical birthplace, was six miles from Epidaurus, afterward the center of influence for the medical teaching and wor- ship of Asklepios. A much more homely and probably more accurate account of his origin has already found mention (pp. 24, 25). Tradition has it that he 61 The Askleplan Temples of Health was an illegitimate child, deserted and left in the fields, found there by a shepherd, and taken in charge by Chiron, one of the prominent figures in the siege of Troy, 1183 B. C. We know little of Chiron himself except that he was probably a Prince of Thessaly, and that he practised surgery in the army encamped around Troy. He also instructed the heroes in the care of their wounds. Asklepios, his pupil and friend, also devoted himself, even more exclusively, to the practise of the art of healing. As we now read of him he is un- doubtedly a composite character, partly his- torical, partly mythical. Many of his charac- teristics and the more valuable features of his system of healing were probably adapted from the then well-known history of the Egyptian priest-physician, I-em-hotep of 3500 B. C. Asklepios is usually pictured as an aged, bearded figure, leaning upon a staff, around which coils a serpent. His two sons, Machaon and Podalirius, continued the succession of medical men in the family and were in charge of one of the most noted of the so-called Temples of Health, that of Piraeus in Thessaly. 62 The Askleplan Temples of Health For many years, it is said, the Asklepian family furnished the only source of supply of medical men. Finally, we begin to hear of priests and physicians engaged in the care of the temples of health who had no blood connection with the Asklepian family, and were simply united in a similar enterprise and endeavor. The name Asklepiadse was still employed in charac- terizing them for many years, and it was ever their custom to pretend a trace of descent from the God Asklepios, however patently flimsy the claim. The temples were both hospitals and places of worship, perhaps partaking more of the na- ture of the modern German heilstdtte than of the religious center. The worship of Askle- pios, however, formed an important part of the treatment of disease, and this feature must neither be minimized nor overlooked in judging the medical customs of the times. The entire system was an outgrowth from, and in some features a further development of, the temple scheme of medical practise well known cen- turies before in Egypt, and conducted with great success by I-em-hotep and his successors. 63 The Asklepian Temples of Health In all, there were considerably over three hundred Asklepian temples of health in Greece alone. Every town and city of any size could show such an institution within and usually on the outer margin of its borders. The most famous of these was the Hieron, near Epi- daurus. This temple constituted the center of the worship of Asklepios. All other asklepia were under the direction of the Boule, the governing Council of the Hieron, and were subject to its decrees. At Piraeus, Delphi, Pergamos, Tricca, Troezen, Rhodes, Cos, Cni- dus, and Athens were famous health temples, some of which flourished even centuries after the opening of the Christian era. Two of these were very popular — Cos (the home and early center of activity of Hippo- crates) and Cnidus — and were the seats of rival medical schools. In the island of Cos flourished the Dogmatists, or students of the philosophy of medicine. In Cnidus developed the School of Empirics, who made a point of collecting data from their cases, tabulating them, and using them as generalizations in the studv and treatment of other patients. 64 The Asklepian Temples of Health The former of the two schools attained the greater prominence from the fact that in its hereditary succession of priest-physicians was born Hippocrates (467 B. C?) who instituted principles and engaged in a practical applica- tion of medical thought and theory far in advance of his time. He was reared in the worship of Asklepios, and though his direct origin is not known he is supposed to have descended from the god. His reputation and actual accomplishments were such as to place him among the figures of history, and to win for him the name "Father of Medicine." The ruins of the asklepion at Cos have been uncovered during the past few years. Hip- pocrates did not confine his medical work to the limits of the island of Cos or to the Temple of Health. He traveled widely, practising hy- giene and medicine over an extensive territory, his fame extending before and after him. His writings contain much that is still of value. He was a contemporary of Socrates, and lived in a brilliant intellectual age. When we re- member that he trephined the skull for brain injuries, opened the chest to evacuate coUec- 6s The Askleplan Temples of Health tions of fluid, and treated with intelligence both dislocations and fractures, the thought deepens that he measured up easily in comparison, in- tellectually and practically, with the distin- guished men of this day. He spent the latter portion of his life in Thessaly, and died at Larissa at some time between 400 and 377 B.C. No other asklepion rivaled, either in size or reputation, that of the Hieron of Epidaurus. The town was then a fashionable resort, and to it flocked not only sick folk, but pleasure- seekers in great numbers. The Hieron, just out of the town, which is now called Pidhavro, was about a mile in di- ameter. It contained the Temple, with its columned abaton or open-air dormitory, its theater holding about 12,000 people, its sta- dium for athletic games, a famous art gallery and collection, and a splendid library. The theaters at Delphi and Tauromenon also held about 12,000, and often overflowed with the spectators of the chariot or foot races, or with those who enjoyed music or the play. At Athens and at other of the asklepia there was 66 w . [l._ OUTLINE RESTORATION PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS s^ i-^ rr .r^:i^s^. HIERON-CPIDAURUS X -^ ^K.*•vJ^. ,:^ . ' • ^"o /. unniiiuiujrr H~ BCT .% Kl-Nli.u \ IKiS 111- \ I'Atil ..! Illl Mm K.i\ (.ji MiD'il A S.'Ulli l'r..ii\l.i-.i. B <;\mri.iM»iiii'|. C Iiiiii)!'- 'if Aai.|>i«s. D D Ho: c-'tsl a"il >»>^< AUuon ; til.' li.n.r -.lury ••( lli.- laiur .iihI lli.- >l.-|i» Ir.ulini; donn to it iiru shown. E Tlic riiolos. F li'iipl'"' Aii.-iiii-.. G Uv tiuiw. H Siii.'ll allnr. I Unrgt allar(?i. J South iKmiKl.in .,r S11I..I |,i.iiiiu. K llii- •S.i'Mi.- I.iiil.linj;.' L Mil- li.ith. of ' AskUpios. M Su|iiK.«.Hl ^MiiiLi-iiiiii or ho-.!' I. N I hi; liiiililiii;; »'ith fuiir i|u;.illis. Q Sii|.j»pMil imrlico irf Coljs. R N-Mihraslcrn t'otoniLide. S N"iih- 111,11111 .|ii.iilr.iii>;li . T >"i|>l'"^p6<^ is commonly used by Greek medical writers to describe the foaming from the mouth in epilepsy. 'A-oxwpiiv is used to express the departure of the seizure from the patient. It is a strictly and typically medical term. "EnL^U-Keiv 99 Luke the Physician is found only in Luke, of the four Gospels. The old medical writers employed the word to describe the doctor's inspection and examination of his patient. '£ca £>•/?? ? is used by Luke four times, and only once is it found elsewhere in the New Testament. It is the medical expres- sion for any suddenness in a medical phe- nomenon, as a convulsion, a paralysis, or the epileptic cry. No other writer in the New Testament refers to the duration of these seizures, in which Luke tells us the spirit "hardly" departed from him. Only Luke records the replacement and healing of Malchus' ear. Christ, as far as we are privileged to know, worked no other surgi- cal cure and restored no other amputated organ. Luke seems to have been impressed by the novelty of the medical experience. Luke alone tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, which contains much of interest to the medical man. He alone in the New Testa- ment uses the medical word ^Aif^aviy'?, "half dead." No other than he uses the medical ex- pression inavipx^ffr^oii^ in Saying "when I come again I will repay thee." lOO Luke the Physician In the story of Ananias and Sapphira the word k^i(po^£ (gave up the ghost) is strictly medical, and very rare. Luke uses the expression three times. And finally, in describing the restoration of Saul's vision by Ananias, Luke alone uses the words XeTrids^ (scales — a medical term) and dTrontnTscvj meaning to fall off, as of scales from the skin, or of diseased or dead portions of the body. Paul in his own two accounts of this miracle omits all of the details that interested Luke, and in one instance fails even to mention his own loss of sight. Many other examples might be cited, but enough testimony has been adduced to satisfy any other than a hypercritical jury. In a much more satisfactory manner than by the bald statement that he was a physician, and one of culture, Luke has left a stamp upon medical history that would appear lasting to the point of being indelible. Just a word of comment may be interesting in the matter of Luke's power of case relation in the series of miracle-cures wrought by the Master Physician. The healing of the man with a withered lOI Luke the Physician hand (Luke 6) is a fine description, differing in many points from that of Mark. Luke is much more observing. The account of the heahng of the centurion's servant (Chapter 7) is also much more expUcit in medical details than the account by Matthew, Mark does not tell the story at all. The healing of the Gadarene de- moniac (Chapter 8) is a graphic picture de- scriptive of a condition not infrequent in the medical practise of that day. The possession by devils was a matter of reality to Luke, and Christ himself failed to relieve us of the necessity of believing that Luke's conviction amounted to understand- ing in this matter. We will not enter into the discussion at this time, but can well afford to wait until we graduate into a knowl- edge of a more Christlike medicine than our own before refusing to believe the dogmatic and literal statements of these New Testa- ment case histories. Luke discriminates in a manner that is very significant between cast- ing out devils and curing diseases. Christ "gave them power," Luke tells us, "over all devils, and to cure diseases" (Chapter 9). 102 Luke the Physlclail In the story of the cure of the leper Luke indicates his clear knowledge of Old Testa- ment medicine and of the divine laws of hygiene as laid down by Moses at God's command (Chapter 5). The raising of Jairus' little daughter por- trays Luke, like his Master, as a lover of children. Only one who had absorbed, as had the Christ, the full confidence of a child with its head on His breast, could have penned this picture. Luke also had learned to know the wholesomeness of child life and child trust in his work as a medical practitioner. It is a point not to be overlooked that in the midst of his busy day and alongside of historical facts of importance this critical physician recalls Christ's invitation to Kttle children to "come unto Me." "And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any. ..." This paragraph convicts the his- torian of a keen insight as to the limitations of the doctor, and suggests at the same time a gleam of humor with respect to the occasional 103 Luke the Physician necessary outlay without commensurate return. The reference to the expenditure of her entire income need not be held to imply that the expense was one of medical fees and charges only. The cost of travel in search of health, of treatment at health resorts, of votive offer- ings, of incantations and masses, was as real in the time of Christ as to-day. In telling of the woman "with the spirit of infirmity" (Chapter 13) Luke goes into great detail in the description of signs and symptoms. She was afflicted "eighteen years," she was "bowed together," "could in no wise Hft herself up." "Immediately she was made straight." To the point is every word in the description. In the story of the lepers (Chapter 17) which "stood afar off," there is a silent reference to the isolation of the contagious class. In the Acts of the Apostles (Chapter 3) Luke describes a congenital deformity, in the man "lame from his mother's womb." This cure removes all ground from under the feet of those carping critics who desire to look upon Christ's miracles as natural phenomena similar to those seen to-day in medical practise, many 104 Luke the Physician of which are simple changes in mental and nervous, and probably chemical states. Here was no chemical change, and no mental state. Born a cripple, Luke takes pains to emphasize the fact that he was lame until Christ, through Peter, healed him, and then, and only then, he "leaping up stood, walking and leaping." Here was no hysterical phenomenon, but a miracle-cure of the first order. "For the man was above forty years old on whom this miracle of healing was shewed." Luke seems to relate with a definite purpose the divine commission of the medical profession (Acts 4) : " Grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal." He also refers with serious emphasis to the response given to this appeal for medical inspiration from above (Acts 4 : 31). In the miracle-cures of the Apostles, Luke again discriminates between "sick folk, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits." In both classes of ailment, however, he points to the need of the physician, and states that "they were healed every one" (Acts 5 : 16). 105 Luke the Physician In his last chapter (Acts 28 : 8, 9) Luke tells us that Paul also had power in miracle-cure. Here again is an instance of a definite physical disorder, a hemorrhage of some given type, the causal condition perhaps not having been recognized, nor the need for one suspected by the Aposde. The cure is none the less def- inite, however, and Luke's confidence in the efficacy of the method is none the less secure. We have no hint throughout the writings of Luke as to his own methods of practise. From the references made to him by the early writers we gather that he was a medical practitioner prior to his conversion to Christ. Therefore his practise was not originally, at least, one of miracle-cure, whatever it may have developed into at a later time. Probably he used many of the simple and sensible hygienic methods for which the Greek physicians were famous. Probably he minimized the value of drugs. We can hardly doubt that when working beside the Apostle Paul he learned to value the power and efficacy of an appeal to the Great Physician. It is a satisfaction to feel confident, however, that Luke was a practical, everyday, though a 106 Luke the Physician rare doctor, and one of the old school in so far as that implies good breeding, an entire and complete submersion of self in the good of the patient, a gentle courtesy, and in addition — only in addition — a fine scientific equipment commensurate with the development of the period in which the man is privileged to strive for and to attain the welfare of his fellow-men. In retouching and completing our picture of this Gentile convert to the Christian practise of religion and medicine, it will not be amiss to direct attention to the fact that on the only three occasions on which Luke the Physician is recorded to have been in company with Paul, the latter had just suffered a severe illness. There is no doubt left in our minds by Paul himself that Luke was dear to him. Is it not likely also that he was his physician ? Be this as it may, Paul makes no secret of his respect and of his reliance upon "the beloved physi- cian," who was probably, almost certainly, the only Christian doctor of his day. It seems only natural that Paul would turn to him as a coun- selor as well as friend. Under Christ, then, Luke was and is the Dean 107 Luke the Physician of the Christian medical profession. How he must have cherished the confidence that some- where and somewhen he would take counsel face to face with the profession's Head! The earth has recently given up certain of her treasures and has thereby confirmed Luke's oft-questioned statement that an enrolment of the people was in progress at the time Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem in dire need of lodging and comfort. Only the physician- historian has given us the story of the shep- herds' bewilderment, of the angels' song upon the hills, and of the Baby King's birth in a manger. Only Luke hints at the forlorn con- dition of the Virgin-Mother on that wonderful night. None save him transmits the message, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." The lowliness and the humility of the scene, as well as the wonder and silent majesty of the tribute paid the God-child by the shepherds and by the Wise Men following the Bethlehem star, seem to have been borne in upon the heart of the Evangelist, perhaps because he was a physician. Luke notes even the eight days of waiting before the io8 Luke the Physician sacred rite of circumcision, and the naming of Jesus, the Lord's Christ. It had been honor enough for one human hfe to have gifted the ages with this homely, heart- winning song. Luke read in it more perfectly than any other the divine Infant's loving per- sistence in forcing His way into a world unwill- ing to accept His salvation; the triumph over death by the Saviour of ignorant and ungracious men; and the peace and eternal joy that await every sinsick soul that throws its burdens upon Him. "But when he was yet a great way off his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." The beauty of this parable shines out as a gem in Luke's crown. He had never heard it from the lips of the Master. It had probably been repeated to him by Paul. Christ knew our need of such a stimulus and such a welcome as are portrayed here. He allowed Luke to paint the picture under His direction. Luke the physician aided the Christ in applying its balm to the despair of centuries. No one else reminded the world that the prodigal will 109 Luke the Physician ahvays be welcomed home; that the Father will see him while yet a great way off, and hasten to meet him. Luke knew as knew no fisherman and no publican the healing virtue of an out- reaching, inviting forgiveness of sin, Luke's mission, it would seem, was the healing not only of bodies, but the hearts and souls of lonely men. For his witness to the Father's unfailing remedy we are everlastingly indebted to him. Note. — In full recognition of the varying opinion (in- cluding that of my esteemed publishers) \\dth respect to the identity of "the woman . . . which was a sinner" (Luke 7) with a "woman" (Mark 14 and Matthew 26) and with Mary of Bethany (John 11 and 12), the author sub- mits the accounts in parallel as his ground for a fixed con- viction that they are one and the same. The Fathers of the early church held this view. Christ's evident affection for the Bethany home becomes no less beautiful in the light of the seemingly necessary assumption that Mary "loved much" because she had been "forgiven much." The argument hinges almost altogether on the time and place. There may have been only one anointing, or the two anointings may have been by one and the same Mary. The question is of real interest. If both anointings occurred at Bethany, or even if they may have occurred there, and if the time of both incidents may have coincided, then objection to the identity of the two women must cease, because the similarity of the parallel columns becomes too striking to be ignored. In the opinion of the author a 1 10 Luke the Physician full study of the account by Luke renders the conclusion necessary that the time of the incidents narrated in the five accounts may without difiSculty have been the same. Four undoubtedly refer to one occurrence at Bethany, though in two of these Mary's name is omitted, and the word "woman" is used in striking similarity to the term used in Luke 7. All of the four accounts refer to the days just in advance of the Passover. Chapter 7, comprising the account by Luke, covers certainly a considerable, and just as certainly an indeterminate period that may easily have covered the time of the Passover. Objection has been made that if the "woman" and Mary were the same, then Christ was on terms of intimacy with Martha and Mary, and had shown his affection for Mary before the time of her forgiveness, namely, at the raising of Lazarus. Consultation with the account in John II, however, proves that Mary anointed and wiped Christ's feet before Lazarus' death (verse 2). If then the "woman" and Mary were identical, the anointing took place at the latest during, and perhaps prior to the illness of Lazarus, and "forgiveness" was hers before Lazarus died, and before his raising from the dead. It would seem as though the point of time must be passed over, though it certainly cannot be held as an objection to the identity of incident and character. As to place, it may be said that in Luke's story it was far more likely that Christ was in Judea than in Capernaum of Galilee if we read naturally and in the order of the text. Capernaum is mentioned in verse i (Chapter 7), then Nain to the south (verses 11-16), then inverse 17 "this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region round about." Why this mention of Judea III Luke the Physician farther still to the south (with Samaria between), unless Christ had passed on toward Jerusalem? And why not precede " Judea" by "all the region round about" in verse 17, if Judea was not the district of immediate presence? Once grant that Christ was in Judea, and Jerusalem becomes "the city," and Bethany is hard by. The de- scription of the "woman [which was] in the city" follows without mention of any occurrence that would point to a change of scene. The place, therefore, would seem to stand as an argument for the identity of the two women, rather than as an indication that there were two places and two women. The closest student of Bible records fails to determine the exact order and time of many of the inci- dents in Christ's life. Mark and Matthew place the feast at Bethany and at the house of Simon the leper. Luke also mentions Simon, and calls him "the Pharisee." There is no reason to think that they were not the same Simon, provided the other de- tails of the accounts agree. With Mark and Matthew, John mentions Bethany, but fails to give the name of the host. The acts of devotion by Mary of Bethany and by the "woman" both met with protest, which while not identical in form, differed in no way that would affect the question of identity of the incidents. It is hardly likely that only one comment was made. Indeed, John, who specifies Mary of Bethany, Lazarus' sister, agrees with Luke that she anointed the feet of Christ, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Mark and Matthew specify Bethany as the place, but mention the anointing only of Christ's head. Identical incidents, to be sure, but different ob- servers, and different impressions of the importance of various features of the occurrence! 112 Luke the Physician Luke, Matthew, and Mark agree that an alabaster box (cruse) of ointment was used. "And why," some one says, " try to prove that Mary of Bethany was a 'sinner' ?" First of all, because if we have been misreading the Bible since the time of the Fathers, we had better at once retrace our steps. It is sufficient to know that one reading or the other is as nearly as possible correct. Far more important, however, is the lesson of forgive- ness shown by the Master Physician, and the healing granted of moral disease and sin. Christ seems to draw no such distinction between pardonable and unpardonable sin as that carved deep by hypocritical humanity. He made it clear in another incident (John 8) that He held different standards of judgment and forgiveness from those of Pharisaical men. Moreover, it is likely that His for- giveness was complete, and unaccompanied by a shrug of the shoulder or by a withholding even of affection. Only our own " Friendly Societies " exclude fallen women, every one of whom is a victim of the wickedness of a man, or of social conditions equally vicious and depraved. Whether a degenerate morally and physically, or, as is oftentimes true, simply a weak, vain creature, oppressed out of virtue by pov- erty and an unhappy home, she is in sore need of affection such as the Christ gave, or for her hope will never see dawn. It offers no difficulties to one who has studied the deeper and better side of many of these unhappy women, no sane one of whom would remain in her life of shame for even her brief average life of five years if her sister-women would allow her to emerge; it offers no obstacles, we repeat, to the belief that in asserting the identity of "the woman . . . which was a sinner" with Mary of Bethany we must also "3 Luke the Physician admit that Christ loved her sister and her. Rather does the clinging devotion of Mary indicate her sense of eternal obli- gation to Him for lifting her out of a sorrow which in her day was all too common in the home of Gentile and Jew. n^ a o o G ^ 9 X-0 **^ 4) *-* C — 'Su O C O cfi u rt V J5 « in u O rt rt c.ti s.t: j= -r ^ rt ^ >-T3 — •- U u " .rt. I * -< 175 u u -C 3-5 £.— r2 Mj: o «) 9 5 *> u g *ir-,w >. u tn •■• rt u S 5 3 .2 ^ ** " T, X .•£■6 o a •V u C rt ■ s o S «! re ■ •^i; E if «! re vj o \i C4, — „ 3 a r s « . *~ "5 >-" -vl v> V ^ «^^ JJ 114 c 2 < g ^ Q '^ _ O S ._. o C/j ^ 3 C 2 V THE MASTER PHYSICIAN In an age of scientific quiet, almost of sleep, appeared suddenly the greatest Physician of history. No medical school gave Him pro- fessional birth; to Him none dares lay claim of parentage or nurture. No human influence nor training has before or since developed the naturalness, the directness, nor the sim- plicity of His method. In none is embodied the principle of His healing power. From Jehovah, the Healer, Counsellor, and Father of the fugitive band from Egypt came the all- wisdom and power that effected each cure. It were an idle task, on the basis of human prescience and skill, to attempt an explanation or an exposition of His work as a physician. Christ's knowledge and His cures were divine, or the reports constitute a clever conspiracy of charlatanry and guile. There was very much of God the Father in all His dealings with the sick. Yet His touch was unmistak- 117 The Master Physician ably that of Jesus Christ of Bethlehem, of Nazareth, and Galilee. It mattered not to the widow of Nain that it was the King of the Jews and of the Past and Future who gave her back her son. It was of greatest concern that the gift was concrete, and that it came from One she could see, and thank, and know. Even to the people who needed salvation He was for the moment less God than man. In order to reach them and us His medical life took on a very human form. Like the Greek doctors in Rome, He was of lowly birth, and as with all professional de- scendants of the royal medical line of Egypt, it was new for Him to appear in other than a priestly and kingly state. For a definite pur- pose "there was no room for him" even in the inn. Yet His has been the only birth over which the angels have sung for joy. In fel- lowship with the oxen and kine, and in a lone- liness almost as deep as that in which the first Adam must have guarded over Eve in the birth of their boy, so the Virgin Mother brought forth the Christ, and hallowed the world's new day as she laid Him in the manger. In this ii8 The Master Physician connection it will afford rare comfort to some that Luke the physician asserts his unqualified belief in the certainty ^ of Christ's miraculous birth.2 Why not, when he knew for a certainty the wonder of His resurrection ? Notwithstanding the horrid nightmare of Herod's reign, there was peace enough in the earth to warrant the shepherds in watching over their flocks in confidence, and their follow- ing the angels' song to Bethlehem in full cer- tainty that a King reigned there whom no Herod could destroy. Later came the three Kings from the East led by the Evening Star, which astrologic history tells us could only have risen in that position during the year 8 B. C. Recently discovered Egyptian records leave little doubt in our minds that the census which Augustus had decreed for each four- teenth year obtained in Jewry as in Rome and Egypt, and therefore was held in this eighth year before the so-called Anno Domini. There are definite references in the ancient writers to census taken in Rome in 8 B. C, in Palestine ^ Chapter 1:4. 2 Chapter i : 34-37. 119 The Master Physician in A. D. 7, in Asia Minor in A. D. 35, and in Rome again in A. D. 48. With one omission there is included here a series of cycles, each of approximately fourteen years. Even Luke's assertion that "all went to be taxed, every one into his own city," has been verified by the Egyptian document unearthed in 1907, which testifies to the order issued by the Roman governor in A. D. 104, requiring that every one should proceed to his own home for the census. Thus is fixed for us with a new comparative exactness the period in which Jesus began His life on earth, and the medical age in which He exerted His wondrous power. Herod died in the spring of B. C. 4. The Christ must therefore have remained in Egypt with His parents nigh unto four years before they set their faces homeward, and turned aside into Nazareth of Galilee. Luke tells us that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." That He was a full-blooded, vigorous, out- door boy, we can be sure. That he entered into the games of boydom it is idle to question. 120 The Master Physician The wide, green level below and facing Nazareth must have seemed peculiarly adapted for the Boy's playground. The hills, the narrow mountain path winding up to the village from the plain below, the lilies of the field, the orange and fig trees, the birds and the butter- flies in which the country is so rich — ^all these must have filled with exquisite joy His outdoor day. The shepherds and their flocks, the caravans of travelers passing Nazareth on the roadway, the carpenter shop, left their impress upon the growing mind and heart of the Boy, and fitted Him for contact with men from all tribes and factions. Twenty miles through the clear air to the southwest was Mount Carmel, on the top of which Elijah had long before called upon his God to undo the priests of Baal. Probably Jesus heard the story at His mother's knee. No doubt He wore a white, short cloak, and a bright-colored kerchief over head and shoul- ders. The girls and women wore white veils, silk dresses with scarfs, and blue, and red, and yellow, and green trousers. In school the teacher sat on a seat above the boys, who stood 121 The Master Physician or sat on the floor in a semicircle, the Httle ones in the front rows. Probably much of His early teaching was done by Mary, His mother. From her, in all likelihood, Luke heard the story of Christ's birth and boyhood as he pic- tures them to us. There is an old tradition that she died at Ephesus, the Vanity Fair of Asia Minor. Here Luke may have seen her when he passed through with Paul, and from the mother's own lips, in the shadow of the great Temple of Diana, have learned of his Master, w^hom he must have longed to see. Christ was born into an age of emperor worship, and in an era stone dry of the love of man for humankind. Julius Caesar had been deified, and Augustus bad set up his own image for adoration in every temple except that in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, in the cities of the Roman Empire he had overlooked the entire lack of hospitals, orphan and foundling asylums, poorhouses, and institutions of a like charitable kind. In the main the period 27 B. C. to A. D. 14 was a reign of peace. For several centuries the outside world had been accumulating medical wisdom, while Rome 122 The Master Physician had reveled in war. Two of Alexander's generals, Ptolemy, the governor of Egypt, and Eumenes, governor of Pergamos, had founded splendid libraries in the interest of science. The former collected in Alexandria over 600,000 volumes. The latter, in rivalry, accumulated at Pergamos over 200,000 manuscripts, which the turning of the wheel of fate in the person of Antony sent one day to replace the Alexandrian collection which had been destroyed by Julius Caesar. At first the rivalry was so keen that the export of papyrus from Alexandria was forbidden in order to prevent the copying of the manuscripts for the library at Pergamos. The result was the invention of Pergamos paper or parchment, a stimulus to greater growth on the part of the smaller institution of learning. The School of Alexandria was the leading scientific center of the world. Ptolemy Soter and, after him, his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, gathered round them the world's learned men, attracting them with fine homes and ample salaries. Two of these, Herophilus (300 B. C.) and Erosistratus (died 280 B. C), were famous anatomists, who benefited from the great 123 The Master Physician opportunities offered for dissection and vivi- section. They described the brain and its membranes, also the blood-supply of the latter, the anatomy of the eye, of the intestines, and of the main blood-vessels. Erosistratus also described the valves of the heart.^ He wrote on fevers, on hygiene, and on therapeutics. Galen and so many other prominent medical men studied in Alexandria that in the period just before and during Christ's medical life it was deemed a certificate of thorough equip- ment to have spent a season in medical prep- aration abroad. About 200 B. C. the procedures of Arcaga- thus and others had brought Greek medical practise into thorough disrepute. Not until the year 96 B. C., during the Consulate of Caius Marius, did the Roman Empire react from his malign influence. Asklepiades of ^ Those ill-advised persons who are now exclaiming with fever heat against the scientific and usually painless study of the lower animals for the benefit of the human race refuse to listen to indubitable testimony that our ground knowledge of anatomy was obtained by a similar though always painful study of animals and of live human (criminal) beings. 124 The Master Physician Bithynia then came to Rome as a youth of twenty-two summers, and in a short time had won a place for himself as a skilful and safe, if not as a strictly regular, practitioner of the art of healing. He was a keen ob- server, and yet withal more or less of a quack. His first success is reported to have been his rescue of a comatose corpse from interment while still alive. He had noted signs of life while the funeral ceremonies were under way, and, despite the protests of friends and relatives whose fingers were already outstretched toward the estate, Askle- piades insisted that the dead man be car- ried to his home, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing him thoroughly alive. Asklepiades was a combination of scientist and charlatan. He not only advertised hunself as being able to cure " cito^ certe, et jucunde^^ (surely, happily, and with despatch), but actually had, through a sensible use of hygienic measures and mild medicinal preparations, an unusual measure of success. About 55 B. C. he was at the height of his fame. His death came in 29 B. C, at the ripe and honorable age of 125 The Master Physician 90. Mithridates the Great, himself an ad- vanced student of experimental medicine, had in 75 B. C. invited him to his court in Pontes, but Asklepiades had preferred to remain the center of a newly growing and influential school of Grasco-Roman medical men. During his medical lifetime Caius Marius the Consul, Sulla the Dictator, and Julius Caesar had come and gone. Two years after the death of Asklepi- ades, Csesar Octavianus assumed the title of Augustus, and inaugurated a period of Roman intellectual brilliancy that was only outshone by the quiet, divine light that streamed in advance of the Great Physician just growing out of boyhood in the Roman province of Galilee. Jerusalem at the time of Christ's nativity formed a portion of a military mon- archy in everything but the name. Augustus Caesar did not seek after great conquests, though Spain was finally subdued during his reign, and the war with the Germans was brought to its disastrous termination in the annihilation of the dreamer Varus by Ar- minius. One of the most striking features of Augustus' 126 The Master Physician reign was its long series of intellectual giants. Following the deaths of Cicero and Caesar came in rapid succession the poets Lucretius and Lucullus, Virgil, Horace, 0\dd, Maecenas, Li\y and Tacitus the historians, and Juvenal the satirist. Contemporary with these men came into the forefront of medicine Themison, the pupil of Asklepiades and the founder of the medical order or sect of Methodists (30 B. C). Themison, like his preceptor, discarded many of the Hippocratic doctrines, and insisted that a general knowledge of the principles which all diseases have in common was all that was necessary to qualify the practitioner for the care of a patient. He retained Asklepiades' ar- rangement of diseases into their chronic and acute forms; but went farther in classifying them according to his idea of their causation: (a) those due to constriction, (b) those due to relaxation, and (c) those arising from a com- bination of these conditions. Each of liis three main di\dsions, he claimed, should be treated by a given method suited to all of the ailments included in that group. The aim of the Methodist sect seemed to be to simplify the 127 The Master Physician study and the theory of medicine. In dis- carding the real search after the causal factor, so all-important to the Dogmatic School, and in slighting the investigation and correlation of symptoms, the strong point of the Empirics, the Methodists assumed the existence of certain systemic states which, they taught, constituted the science of medicine. Their real influence upon its history and progress has been in the direction of forcing contemporary and rival schools of medicine to a more detailed study of the manifestations and symptoms of disease. In his later years Themison was a friend and fellow medical worker of Celsus. Christ was born in the middle of Methodism. In or about A. D. 25-27, when He emerged from His period of training into the activity of His short public ministry, Themison must have been at the height of his fame (died A. D. 40), while Celsus was just trying his wings as the first native-bom Roman physician. Both were well acquainted with the practical im- portance of hygienic measures. The diet, systematic occasional purgation, the influence of climate, of judicious exercise, massage, and 128 The Master Physician rest, were all procedures of recognized value in the treatment of the given case. Asklepiades had taught them the medicinal advantages of the shower-bath and of hydrotherapy in general. From the standpoint of treatment the average doctor of the day, whether of the Methodist or any other School, was as well equipped to return the patient to health as are most practitioners of the twentieth century. He lacked the facilities for the wonderful system of laboratory diagnosis that is now at command. But he had the means and intelligence that are born of narrow ad- vantages, so that he treated successfully the conditions he knew. He even possessed many of our more valuable drugs. Yet the student of contemporaneous literature will read that Asklepiades and Themison were looked upon by many as not to be trusted, because savoring of the quack physician rather than the sound practitioner of medicine. Juvenal, for instance, writes, " Quot Themison aegros autumno ocdderat uno " (Sat, xo, V. 221): "How many sick in one short autumn fell Let Themison, their ruthless slayer tell." 129 The Master Physician Pliny, at every opportunity, speaks just as slightingly of Themison's master, Asklepiades. Evidently both realized to the full the com- mercial value of clever advertising. Both were of an unusual intellectual type, and, like all men of fixed principles and aggressive per- sonality, had enemies who lost no opportunity of sending a shaft home. Although practising in Rome, their influence was undoubtedly strong in the city of Jeru- salem. The Methodists spread every^-here. Jesus Christ not only came into touch with their representatives, but He had inherited a rich fund of Jewish medical erudition. Against their methods Christ's own modes of healing form a contrast that becomes all the more striking when we recall the fact that He tol- erated no mistaken diagnoses and never failed to cure. We have in our knowledge of the Essenes in Jerusalem a still further evidence of Christ's contact with the medical life of His day. Josephus tells us (Wars H, 8:6): ''They take great pains in studying the writings of the ancients, and choose out of them what is most 130 The Master Physician for the advantage of the soul and body; and they inquire after such roots and medicinal stones as may cure their distempers." The Essenes were very similar in doctrine to the Therapeutae of Alexandria and the neighbor- hood of the Dead Sea (vid. Philo in De Vita Contemplativa ; also, Heckethom's Secret So- cieties ; and Farrar's Life oj Lives) ^ a sect to which tradition assigns the parents of Jesus. The story has it that the boy Jesus was born among and trained by these people, who pro- fessed alone to be able to interpret the writings of Moses. It has probably no foundation in fact. However this may be, we have no definite record of the adherence of Joseph and Mary to such an order of Jewish freemasonry, nor of the contrary. We simply gather from their presence near Jerusalem the certainty that Christ knew their customs and habits, and, no doubt, had heard many if not all of the med- ical doctrines of both the Essenes and Thera- peutse. Every large Grecian town had its asklepion and its temple of health. Under the Hellenistic influence Jerusalem may have shared in this cus- 131 The Master Physician torn of caring for the hygiene and health of its people, though the open worship of the heathen god would have been impossible there. Christ must during His wanderings have been thrown in touch with the asklepia of the heathen cities in Gahlee (Tiberias, Bethsaida Julias, Hip- pos, Sepphoris) . He must also have conversed with many who had sojourned as patients in the Hieron at Epidaurus, or in the asklepion at Athens, or in some other Greek city. What use did He make of His knowledge of human science and methods in the furthering of His cures ? Probably none, is the answer, save in so far as it enabled Him to fathom the hearts and weigh the frailties of men. The Jews were ever skilful in the adaptation of med- ical methods and means. No keener description exists, nor a more vivid picture of the uremic subject, paying the price of his bestial excesses in food, wine, and immorality than is painted by the layman, Josephus, in his tale of Herod's death (Antiquities XVII, 6:5). What Jose- phus knew Christ foreknew more clearly and definitely than he. But the medical practise of the Master Physician was of a different 132 The Master Physician type, and His institutes of medicine were learned in heaven. Little wonder that the crowd stood in amaze. Still less remarkable that they eagerly followed the old custom of placing their sick in the streets that such a passer-by might suggest a cure.^ Asklepiades before Him had been permitted through Provi- dence to revive a man who was apparently dead. Christ prayed God's life into Lazarus* body, which had been three days eternally dead. "Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, — a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure." Such was the testimony of Josephus, himself not a Christian, writing in full appreciation of the importance of his witness in behalf of the Messiah, or of one who was posing as such. The "wonderful works" to which Josephus referred were no more and no less than the physical cures, and the recall of the humanly dead to physical and spiritual life. These startled even the dull world into a momentary rapt attention. Had stupid men been able ^Mark 6:56. ^33 The Master Physician and willing to acknowledge Him, then had they earlier obtained the secret of eternal life from the Great Physician. HIS PATIENTS There seemed to be no choice of field for His labor. If He preferred any, it might be the stony ground. The poor rather than the rich, the short of stature than the noble of mien, the woman who was a sinner than Simon the Pharisee, the publican who cried "God be merciful" rather than the supercilious one who "would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven." There was no discrimination. He did not disdain the rich. Each and all entered into the clientele of the Physician Friend, and the fee found its discharge in the boundless love that rendered the service. In the words "By chance there came down that way, " Christ characterized the Providence that is only another expression for the unfailing guard kept by Him over His own. " For Jesus' sake" is the cry that goes up with authority to the Father from many an anguished soul in recollection of the Great Physician's promise of 134 The Master Physician intercession for those whom He has bought with a price. "My little children ... if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.'' ^ How His patients must have known and loved Him! Even the Pharisees and scribes in their hate continually paid Him a tribute of respect. His prescrip- tion for their ailments was sharp and radical, but it had ever a clean taste. Those of us who are still hypocrites and Pharisees love Him for the lesson He has taught so distinctly through them. From all classes of society they came, from the leisure group and from them who labor through the long day. Was it a blind beggar surmnoning Him from across the road? He obeyed at once the entreaty of the sightless eyes. Was it an appeal from the lonely sisters at Bethany ?. Lazarus at once heard an irresistible voice bidding him return from the grave. Even into His house at Capernaum they found their way through a hole they made in His roof.^ Hear the Physician in the most precious lesson of hope and forgiveness the world has * I John 2:1. 2 Mark 2. ^35 The Master Physician ever learned: "They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. . . . He . . . said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. . . . And they, . . . went out one by one, beginning at the eldest. . . . He said unto her. Woman, where are those thine ac- cusers? hath no man condemned thee? . . . Neither do I condemn thee." ^ Nor was He a specialist in the sense that He was ever found lacking in any form of trouble or disease of body or soul. By the Galilean shore, away from the crowd, there w^as the quiet, unostentatious release of a patient slave from the bondage of thwarted hearing and speech, compelling from the fortunate one and from his friends the involuntarily disobedient cry, "He hath done all things well!"^ A little later, as they came toward Jericho, He filled the eyes and life of blind Bartimeus with a new and glad sunshine.^ "With God," said the angel, "nothing shall be impossible!" "When the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers dis- 1 John 8:3. 2 Mark 7. ^ Mark 10. 136 The Master Physician eases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them." ' "And behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy. . . . He said unto the sick of the palsy, . . . Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay." ^ On the Sabbath the Pharisees were incensed with Him for His unremitting interest in un- fortunate humankind. He scorned their criti- cism, and spoke the words that should inspire with confidence and vigor many a paralyzed worker in the vineyard — "Stretch forth thy hand." "And he did so, and his hand was re- stored whole as the other." ^ " Whosoever shall receive this child " ! * "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He that would limit the beneficence of the Phy- sician Christ must bind Him with the bands of love, and measure His patience by eter- nity. 1 Luke 4. 2 Luke 5. ^ Luke 6. * Luke 9. The Master Physician HIS SKILL IN DIAGNOSIS "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." "Come, see a mariy which told me all things that ever I did." » To this woman Christ w^as not only a being who could read the present, and past, and future for her. He was preeminently a man, not- withstanding she granted Him this vision and power. Had He been only man, her thirst would still be unquenched, you and I were without hope, and the ages that have rolled by would be buried in a night without daybreak or dawn. There is a note of amazement in the accent laid by her upon "man" that indicates an appreciation on her part of som.ething in Him different, more noble, quite incomprehen- sible. His diagnostic acumen had pierced to an untold depth. No man ever understood a woman, much less this Samaritan, save Him whose first glance had read her through. So too with the priest and Levite who passed by on the other side. The priest discreetly saw without looking. The Levite, when he * John 4. 138 The Master Physician had "looked on him," found his own affairs more pressing than he had thought, too urgent to admit of tarrying or even of a benignant smile. Neither the total abstinence nor the par- simony of compassion and friendship toward a fellow traveler seems too mean for the kindly criticism and suggestion, nor so small as to fail of comment from the Superintendent of the great human dispensary. Evidently when we fail to recognize the affair in hand as to its nature and need He follows hard by, binds up the neglected wound, pouring in oil and wine, and, leading the sufferer to an inn, takes care of him. "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick." ^ No malingering is possible with Him. " Learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." ^ Christ humbly served during years of quiet waiting and training. In the field and car- penter-shop He studied the bodies and souls of men. When at last He laid His gentle hand on the brow of the weary world, it was with a * Luke 5. 2 Matthew 9. The Master Physician very loving, unerring touch, one that never started needless pain. His disciple in medicine tells us that "a// they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them." We may picture Luke the physician as he probed the verity of the records of such a keen- ness of understanding and of such a power to cure. We may with him measure the wisdom and foreknowledge requisite to invariable cure. We may count upon the certainty of Luke's in- vestigating the permanency of as many as pos- sible of the healings that had been witnessed thirty years before. Did Mary still assert her claim to be the Virgin God-Mother? Did Bartimeus still see? Were the limbs of the palsied one still leaping ? Was the centurion's servant still alive, and no longer under bond- age save that of love to Him ? Was Mary of Bethany^ still conscious of forgiveness, and was her old nature indeed washed clean? Had the devils again entered the Magda- lene? Was the maniac of Gadara sane? 1 Vid. page no. 140 The Master Physician Jairus' little daughter at least were not too old to bear testimony of the kindly stranger who "made her whole." Was there enough to convince this legatee of the Mosaic science of medicine that Christ cured, or only pretended to save? Were none of the brood whom He tenderly gathered under His wings ready to stand for Him ? Hear the conclusion of Luke's probe. ... "It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write . . . that thou mightest know the certainty of those things." Luke the physician had studied and weighed the evidence, medical and lay. He was won to the Christ by all he learned. His testimony is before us to-day. From the healing of the ten lepers, with the inimitable touch portraying the gratitude of one and the carelessness of the nine — mean- ing so much in the way of personal experience from the pen of a physician — to the farewell message from the cross, "To day shalt thou 141 The Master Physician be with me in paradise," Luke's verdict is unmistakably plain. Christ had lived, and still lived for him. Who could discern salvable good in the thief hanging at His side could claim Luke also, with his loyalty and science, for all time. For Luke as for us He was and is verily the Master Physician. HIS METHOD OF CURE "And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and con- tinued all night in prayer to God." Christ made no secret of His means of cure. With one hand clasped in that of the Father in heaven, and the other resting gently upon the head of some needy child of earth, a cir- cuit was established through which ran endless love and perfect peace. " Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." ^ No better illustration can be had of the fastness of His hold upon the Source of that power and the richness of the supply, than His method of solving the medical problem in which the disciples had experienced dis- comfiture and chagrin.^ We see Him in many *Luke 12. ^Matthew 17:19-21. 142 The Master Physician medical r61es — as teacher, as physician, as friend. No such intellect has searched the hearts and minds of men. Witness Him prob- ing the loyalty of the young man in quest of eternal life, sick of earth, but not ready for heaven. " One thing thou lackest : go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, . . . and come, take up the cross, and follow me. . . . And he went away grieved : for he had great possessions." In his exile Napoleon said of Him, " I know men, and Jesus Christ is not a man." It is equally true that as a physician He was more than a healer. He had a purpose and an end in view. He was leading the way along which He wishes the world of men to tread. He knew its thorniness for them and for Him. He knew the price that must be paid to win. " When the time was come . . . He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem." ^ His part in salvation was definite and deter- mined. It remained and still is for the sons of men to follow where He led. His sacrifice and their cure were voluntary on His side. ^ Luke 9. The Master Physician Salvation, however, was and is obligatory upon none. Our cure is perfect if we will; the "will" is necessary. Christ's faith in His power was that of cer- tainty. Yet He insisted on the patient's faith in Him. The lifting power, the dynamite, was there. It must be lighted by a torch flaming from the deepest heart of him who would have the upheaval and the cure. Al- ways without money and without price, but never without an abiding faith. Else the miracle became too commonplace to remain possible. Indeed, the transformation consisted not so much in the physical change as in the inspiration that awakened and enabled the dead confidence to lean on Him. "To him that knocketh it shall be opened," no mat- ter how faint the appeal; but the inference is clear that it shall be opened only in response to the knock. Christ's magnetism drew all men to Him, and many times must have assisted in the cure. Men and women, tiny children, Pharisees and publicans, fishermen, lawyers, and artisans, Judas and John, Peter and Thomas, overbusy 144 The Master Physician Martha, the lonely woman at the well — each and all interested and found absorbing in- terest in Him. "They forsook all, and fol- lowed." Such thoroughness was His as startled those who knew and loved Him best. The inner- most self must ring true. "Now do ye Phari- sees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter." ^ Endless scouring followed by disin- fection constituted sound medical and moral law in Moses^ day, and was reasserted with emphasis when a Greater than Moses was here. "He that is not with me is against me." ^ " No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." ^ "He that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me." * The only fee asked by the Great Physician was self-surrender, but that must be complete in return for eternal glory in fellowship with the Father and with Him. "Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." ^ And ^Luke II. 2 Luke ii : 23. ^Lu^e 9, * Matthew 10. * Matthew 13. The Master Physician on the Father's side, " when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran" to meet him. His sympathy was of such a depth and con- stancy that "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." ^ His tact led Him to show His pierced hands and side that His disciples might recognize, and need not after His going feel too keenly their doubt and forgetfulness of Him. No purely scientific interest could well have been possible to the Christ, because all science was known to and was of Him. His method and objective were as fixed and clear as light, A single aim actuated His treatment and charmed those who came to Him for cure. " The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." ^ The world learned on its saddest day His willingness to die that salvation might be sure. The divine manliness of His comradeship will ever attract men. "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." ' As its Elder Brother, the Physician Christ is * Matthew 8. * Luke 9. ^ John 16. 146 The Master Physician inspiring the world with an everwarm fellow- ship against the day in which it shall stand united before Him. HIS CERTAINTY OF PROGNOSIS "Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. "^ This brief command illustrates Christ's method of dealing with those whom He cured. Faith to the uttermost was required of the patient, but in return there was given a permanent, never a doubtful relief. Neither the possibility of recurrence nor relapse was considered in the command to carry off bodily that whereon he lay. The result justified the trust on the part of the cripple, and on newly strong limbs his life began for all time to glorify the Physician King. "Weep not" constituted His message of as- surance to the widow. Even death in His hands gave a favorable prognosis. At His command " he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother." ^ With Mary He went farther still, promis- ^Luke 5. 2 Luke 7. The Master Physician ing full forgiveness of sin.^ "Her sins which are many are forgiven." ^ In the present tense the verb rmgs out with an immediate- ness and certainty that must have been sweet to the ears of her who had despaired of pardon to the extent, perhaps, of wanting it not. "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is for- given, the same loveth little. . . . Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." This pro- nouncement of an already accomplished physi- cal and moral cure carries the problem out of the future into the present in a manner that is as precious as it is unexpected. "Hath saved" sounds too good to be true. "Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace" ^ to the trembling woman brought a similar surety of comfort and new birth. Im- mediately after, to the ruler of the synagogue, "Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole." The family thought her already dead, and sent a message to that effect. "Trouble not the Master." "Fear not," was the reply; then " they laughed him to scorn." The event * Vid. page no. ^ Luke 7. * Luke 8. 148 The Master Physician did not prove Him mistaken, for as He " called, saying, Maid, arise, . . . she arose straight- way." And finally, that wondrous problem, to many a most hopeless enigma, that richest of all promises if endurance persists to the end: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it." ^ Christ realized as no other physician the struggle in store for every victor over the grave. This test confronted Him. He alone knew that His victory was necessary before we might become conquerors through His name and for His sake. HIS STANDING AS A PHYSICIAN Then: Josephus tells us that "He drew over to Him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles, . . . those that loved him at first did not forsake him." (Antiquities XVIII, 3 :3-) Matthew, however, says there was one traitor 1 Luke 9. 149 The Master Physician who, after the Christ was betrayed, "cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself." * All other testimony shall be that of a loyal follower indeed, but loyal only for cause, and devoted to His service only after proving His authority and worth. As a member of the medical profession, his criticism is certain to be sternly just. We can see in Luke the giant Christopher, searching for the greatest king, and grudging his service to any save that One. "Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them." ^ Evidently both rich and poor are included in the "all." Mani- festly also Christ gave freely, withholding neither from the influential rich nor from the poor. It is significant that "all" classes came. "And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people. . . . And they could not take hold of his words before the people: 1 Matthew 27. * Luke 4. The Master Physician and they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace.'* ^ "And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about." "And they were all amazed, and spake among them- selves, saying. What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the un- clean spirits, and they come out." ^ "And a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon . . . came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; and they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed." ^ "And a certain centurion . . . sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly [urgently]^ saying, That he was worthy for whom he should do this." * "And there came a fear on all : and they glorified God, saying. That a great prophet is risen up among us. . . . And this rumour of * Luke 20. 2 Luke 4. 3 Luke 6. * Luke 7. The Master Physician him went forth throughout all Judaea, and throughout all the region round about." ^ "And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat." ^ On a similar occasion the record mentions that there were lawyers present. Evidently Christ had been bidden formally to a table at which were critical guests, "laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him." ^ They deemed His influence such. "Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him. . . . And Herod said, . . . who is this, of whom I hear such things ? And he desired to see him." * "And, behold, there was a man named Zaccheus, which was the chief among the pub- licans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus." ^ "Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." ® ^ Luke 7. ^Lui^e ^_ SL^j^e u,