eless weed. And indeed how can it be otherwise,
since it has scarcely any taste or smell, and is entirely indebted to
the religion of the Druids for its great character. Wherefore it is to
be rank'd with those other frivolous things, which superstition has
introduced into physick; unless a person can work himself up into a
belief, that the golden sickle, with which it was cut down, the
priest's snow-white garment, the sacrifice of white bulls, and other
such trifling circumstances, are conducive towards a cure.[134]

[133] _Account of poisons, ed. 3. introduction._

[134] _Plin. hist. nat. Lib. xvi. Sec.. ult._

CHAPTER XI.

_The issue of blood in a woman._

Saint Matthew relates, that "Christ, by his word alone, cured a woman
who had been diseased with an issue of blood for twelve[135] years."

[135] _Chap. ix. v. 20._

And here arises a question, concerning the nature of this disease. But
as the words in the Greek are [Greek: gyne haimorrhoousa], I am of
opinion, that it was a flux of blood from the natural parts, which
Hippocrates[136] calls [Greek: rhoon haimatode], and observes, that it
is necessarily tedious. Wherefore having been exhausted by it for
twelve years, may justly be said to be incurable by human art.

[136] _De morb. Lib. i. Sect. 3._

CHAPTER XII.

_Weakness of the back, with a rigidity of the back-bone._

"There was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and
was so bowed together, that she could in no wise lift up herself, and
Jesus laid his hands on her, and she was freed from her infirmity, and
immediately made[137] strait."

[137] _Luke, Chap. xiii. v. 11, &c._

This woman was [Greek: sygkyptousa], that is, _stooping forward_;
being unable [Greek: anakypsai], or _to lift up her head_. Now that
spirit, according to the common way of speaking of the jews, was
satan. For thus Christ himself, answering the ruler of the synagogue,
who was angry that the woman had been cured on the sabbath day, says,
that _satan had held her bound these eighteen years_. And exactly in
the same sense saint Mark employs [Greek: pneuma alalon] for a
_spirit, which obstructed the faculty of speech_.[138]

[138] _Chap. ix. v. 17._

This infirmity often befalls those, who have been very long afflicted
with a disorder of the loins: whence the muscular fibres of that part
become contracted and rigid. Wherefore it is very probable, that this
tedious dise