nfrequently mentioned in
the divination texts and might be favorable, or unfavorable. Various
interpretations were gathered by the scribes in the reference note-books
which serve as guides for the interpretation of the omens and for
text-books of instructions in the temple schools (Jastrow).

The art of divination spread widely among the neighboring nations. There
are many references in the Bible to the practice. The elders of Moab
and Midian came to Balaam "with the rewards of divination in their hand"
(Numbers xxii, 7). Joseph's cup of divination was found in Benjamin's
sack (Genesis xliv, 5, 12); and in Ezekiel (xxi, 21) the King of Babylon
stood at the parting of the way and looked in the liver. Hepatoscopy was
also practiced by the Etruscans, and from them it passed to the
Greeks and the Romans, among whom it degenerated into a more or less
meaningless form. But Jastrow states that in Babylonia and Assyria,
where for several thousand years the liver was consistently employed
as the sole organ of divination, there are no traces of the rite having
fallen into decay, or having been abused by the priests.

In Roman times, Philostratus gives an account of the trial of Apollonius
of Tyana,(16) accused of human hepatoscopy by sacrificing a boy in
the practice of magic arts against the Emperor. "The liver, which the
experts say is the very tripod of their art, does not consist of pure
blood; for the heart retains all the uncontaminated blood, and irrigates
the whole body with it by the conduits of the arteries; whereas the
gall, which is situated next the liver, is stimulated by anger and
depressed by fear into the hollows of the liver."

We have seen how early and how widespread was the belief in amulets and
charms against the occult powers of darkness. One that has persisted
with extraordinary tenacity is the belief in the Evil Eye the power
of certain individuals to injure with a look. Of general belief in the
older civilizations, and referred to in several places in the Bible,
it passed to Greece and Rome, and today is still held fervently in many
parts of Europe. The sign of "le corna,"--the first and fourth fingers
extended, the others turned down and the thumb closed over them,--still
used against the Evil Eye in Italy, was a mystic sign used by the Romans
in the festival of Lemuralia. And we meet with the belief also in this
country. A child with hemiplegia, at the Infirmary for Diseases of the
Nervous System, Ph