Even as late as 1517 Pope Leo X issued, for a consideration,
tickets bearing a cross and the following inscription: "This
cross measured forty times makes the height of Christ in his
humanity. He who kisses it is preserved for seven days from
fallingsickness, apoplexy, and sudden death."
Naturally, the belief thus sanctioned by successive heads of
the Church, infallible in all teaching regarding faith and
morals, created a demand for amulets and charms of all kinds; and
under this influence we find a reversion to old pagan fetiches.
Nothing, on the whole, stood more Constantly in the way of any
proper development of medical science than these fetich cures,
whose efficacy was based on theological reasoning and sanctioned
by ecclesiastical policy. It would be expecting too much from
human nature to imagine that pontiffs who derived large revenues
from the sale of the Agnus Dei, or priests who derived both
wealth and honours from cures wrought at shrines under their
care, or lay dignitaries who had invested heavily in relics,
should favour the development of any science which undermined
their interests.
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