"(23)
(23) Neuburger: History of Medicine, Oxford University
Press, 1910, Vol. I, p. 38.
Divination, not very widely practiced, was borrowed, no doubt, from
Babylonia. Joseph's cup was used for the purpose, and in Numbers, the
elders of Balak went to Balaam with the rewards of divination in their
hands. The belief in enchantments and witchcraft was universal, and the
strong enactments against witches in the Old Testament made a belief in
them almost imperative until more rational beliefs came into vogue in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Whatever view we may take of it, the medicine of the New Testament is
full of interest. Divination is only referred to once in the Acts (xvi,
16), where a damsel is said to be possessed of a spirit of divination
"which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying." There is only one
mention of astrology (Acts vii, 43); there are no witches, neither
are there charms or incantations. The diseases mentioned are numerous:
demoniac possession, convulsions, paralysis, skin diseases,--as
leprosy,--dropsy, haemorrhages, fever, fluxes, blindness and deafness.
And the cure is simple usually a fiat of the Lord, rarely with a prayer,
or with the use of means such as spittle.
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