Alaska sentinel., 1907-11-07
ILLS OF HUMANITY.
The Chronological Theory of Dis-
 ease and Its Curious Phases.

ease and Its Curious Phases.
 The earliest conception of disease seems to have been that evil spirits for the time being took possession of the body, says the British Medical Jour nal. This general notion expressed it. self In various ways.
 The Hndoos built temples to the god dess of Smallpox-a fact used with deadly effect by Edmund Burke in his impeachment of Warren Hastings, whose apologists had pointed to the temples erected In his honor by the natives as evidence of the mlldness of his rule. The Romans had no fewer than three shrines dedicated to the goddess of Fever which was doubtless malaria. As to the present day, there is church in Rome dedicated to Our Lady of Fever, which Is a lineal de- scendant of these shrines.
 Another belief was that the demon of disease was introduced by evil-disposed persons by means of magic. Again, In different races or tribes are found such beliefs as that disease is caused by ghosts of the dead, or by the spirits of animals killed in hunting invading the living. These notions must be care fully distinguished from the later con cept that disease Is a punishment in- flicted by an angry deity.
 This notion of the causation of dis ease naturally led to methods of treat ment directed to the dslodgment of the demoniac intruder Sometimes hole was bored in the sick persons skull to provide an outlet by which the evil spirit might escape. But the most common plan of eXpelling the disease demon was to make his usurped abode as uncomfortable as possible. The pa tient was beaten, starved, smoked with evl-smelllng substances, and drenched with every foul thing that the savage imagination could conceive.
 In the matter of medication, too, the system of ejectng the trespassing spirit by making the quarters in which he had established himself as far as pos sible unlnhabitable persisted long af-
  ly founded had died out, and is not even now entirely extinct. The horri- ble concoctions prescribed by doctors .n the middle ages might seem to have been intended for the forcible eviction of evil spirits. Medieval pharmacy is fai--'y represented by the contents of the witches caldron In Macbeth"
 The chronological theory of disease held sway over the minds of men for thousands of years. But if the simple amusement, the smile dies on our lips when we reflect on the appalling conse- quences of that belief translated into action. It was the notion that disease was caused by demons that led to the belief in witchcraft, which survived in full rigor till the seventeenth century, and is not by any means extinct in this century of light. The belief in witch craft caused the persecution and ju- | dicial murder of countless human be- ings, chiefly old women, guilty of noth- ing worse than eccentricity or madness. The medical profession may justly pride itself on the fact that to the teaching of some of its members the abolition of atrocities which make the heart sick was mainly due.
 Witchcraft Is by no means dead yet, and, as readers of J. K. Huysmans know, "Satanism" with the "black mass" and the like superstitions have still fascination for minds of q cer- tain kind of morbid culture. With these things the demoniac theory of disease has a close affinity. The same superstition survives in another form In the doctrines held by many at the present day that disease is the result of sin, and that sickness Is in itself sinful From this teaching springs the rank growth of quackery which chokes the good seed of truth in the minds of so many of those to whom the higher education has failed to teach the right use of their reason.