tural interpositions
in human affairs was widely accepted. _Nothing has retarded the growth
of scientific medicine during the past 2000 years so much as the iron
grip of theology in maintaining practices based on belief in this
supernatural origin of disease._" The fabled curing of disease by
casting out devils, and the New Testament recordings of Jesus's
conviction that disease was caused by evil spirits, have had an
inestimable detrimental result on the development of medical science.
The fact that Jesus believed in the demoniacal production of diseases
and cured them by exorcism was deemed so important by the author of the
Gospel according to Mark that he has actually recorded the Aramaic words
Jesus was reported to have used in addressing his patients. In Mark
V:41, Jesus is reported to have given the command "Talitha cumi" to a
little Jewish girl whom her parents believed dead. In Mark VII:34, Jesus
is reported as uttering the magical word "Ephphatha," as he "put his
fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue" in behalf of
"one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech."

An excellent and timely illustration of what occurs when secular
knowledge has not yet replaced ecclesiastical ignorance and bigotry,
particularly in the field of medicine, is furnished by an article from
one of Philadelphia's leading newspapers, _The Evening Bulletin_, of
December 23, 1932. We quote it verbatim:

"Faith Healers Arrested; Two Charged with Choking to Death 5-Year-Old
Girl, Linden, Texas, Dec. 23, 1932. Despite a purported confession,
officers to-day continued an investigation of the death of a
five-year-old girl, allegedly at the hands of two itinerant preachers
who sought to 'drive out the devil' they believed responsible for her
partial paralysis. Murder charges were filed against Paul Oaks and his
brother, Coy Oaks, and precautions taken to prevent possible mob
vengeance. Sheriff Nat Curtright said the accused men admitted they had
choked the child to death in an attempt to cure her. Officers said the
preachers had been conducting meetings in rural communities and had
preached on the subject of faith healing. George Wilson, a neighbor,
officers said, found the two men kneeling over the prostrate form of the
child. They ordered him to leave, declaring he was a 'devil.' He said
the child's father was in the room."

Medieval exorcism still practised in one of the leading nations of the
world! In America,