ll, whenever by
hint, explicit statement, or commandment there is found in it anything
relating to medicine, disease, or sanitary regulation, there must be no
error; that is, provided the Bible, in an exceptional sense, is God's
book. Now, what are the facts in this case? They are these: though the
Bible often speaks of disease and remedy, yet the illusions, deceptions,
and gross errors of anatomy, physiology, and pathology, as formerly
taught, nowhere appear upon its pages. This, it must be acknowledged, is
at least singular. But more than this: the various hints and directions
of the Bible, its sanitary regulations, the isolation of the sick, the
washing, the sprinkling, the external applications, and the various
moral and religious injunctions in their bearing upon health are
confessed to be in harmony with what is most recent and approved. To be
sure, the average old-school physician of a century ago would have
blandly smiled at our simplicity, had it been suggested to him that his
methods would be improved by following Bible hints. 'What did Moses know
about medical science?' would have been his reply. But Moses, judged by
recent standards, seems to have known much, or, at least, to have
written well."

The above statement is a truthful relation of facts, from which it can
well be conceived that even in the Bible the physician finds something
to inspire him with the idea of its divine inspiration, as the very
history of medicine, with which it is connected, and with which he is
familiar, only lends him further support in that direction. Most
intelligent physicians are also lovers of philosophical history. None is
more entertaining than Rawlinson, either in his "Seven Great Monarchies"
or his "Ancient Egypt." In his "Ancient Religions," in his concluding
remarks, he observes as follows, in regard to the Hebraic religion: "It
seems impossible to trace back to any one fundamental conception, to any
innate idea, or to any common experience or observation, the various
religions which we have been considering. The veiled monotheism of
Egypt, the dualism of Persia, the shamanism of Etruria, the pronounced
polytheism of India are too contrariant to admit of any one explanation,
or to be derivative of one single source.... It is clear that from none
of the religions here treated of could the religion of the ancient
Hebrews have originated. The Israelite people, at different periods of
its history, came and remained for a co