Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from For the Healing of the Nations: A Popular Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society for the Year MCMXV-XVI
Such ideas and beliefs run back to the very beginning of history. In ancient Babylonia sick ness was ascribed to the visitation of a deity, the in?uence of a devil, or the hostile magic of a sorcerer: hence the primitive doctor in Babylon was first and foremost an exorcist. Egyptian civilization retained the traditional view that disease was the work of demons, ghouls, vampires, or ghosts, which insinuated themselves into a sick man's body. The Oldest treatise on medicine extant is the medical papyrus discovered by Flinders Petrie near El Lahun, which dates from about 1500 b.c., and is earlier than the time of Moses. Then, and for long centuries afterwards, medicine and magic were akin. The physicians of Egypt, though they reached to some real knowledge of science, were magicians as well. Born in the fetish-hut, the art of healing fixed its abode in the temple, and for many centuries the court physicians of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies also held high Office in the Egyptian priesthood.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
