ty of the people. These quacks went about
the country drawing up horoscopes, and arranging schemes of birthday
prognostications, of which the majority were without any authentic
warranty. The law sometimes took note of the fact that they were
competing with the official experts, and interfered with their business:
but if they happened to be exiled from one city, they found some
neighbouring one ready to receive them.

Chaldaea abounded with soothsayers and necromancers no less than with
astrologers; she possessed no real school of medicine, such as we find
in Egypt, in which were taught rational methods of diagnosing maladies
and of curing them by the use of simples. The Chaldaeans were content
to confide the care of their bodies to sorcerers and exorcists, who were
experts in the art of casting out demons and spirits, whose presence in
a living being brought about those disorders to which humanity is prone.
The facial expression of the patient during the crisis, the words which
escaped from him in delirium, were, for these clever individuals, so
many signs revealing the nature and sometimes the name of the enemy
to be combated--the Fever-god, the Plague-god, the Headache-god.
Consultations and medical treatment were, therefore, religious offices,
in which were involved purifications, offerings, and a whole ritual of
mysterious words and gestures. The magician lighted a fire of herbs
and sweet-smelling plants in front of his patient, and the clear flame
arising from this put the spectres to flight and dispelled the malign
influences, a prayer describing the enchantments and their effects being
afterwards recited. "The baleful imprecation like a demon has fallen
upon a man;--wail and pain have fallen upon him,--direful wail has
fallen upon him,--the baleful imprecation, the spell, the pains in
the head!--This man, the baleful imprecation slaughters him like a
sheep,--for his god has quitted his body--his goddess has withdrawn
herself in displeasure from him,--a wail of pain has spread itself as a
garment upon him and has overtaken him!" The harm done by the magician,
though terrible, could be repaired by the gods, and Merodach was moved
to compassion betimes. Merodach cast his eyes on the patient, Merodach
entered into the house of his father Ea, saying: "My father, the baleful
curse has fallen like a demon upon the man!" Twice he thus speaks,
and then adds: "What this man ought to do, I know not; how shall he be
healed?