Toward the end of the eighteenth century the most eminent
divines of the American branch of the Anglican Church framed
their _Book of Common Prayer_. Abounding as it does in evidences
of their wisdom and piety, few things are more noteworthy than a
change made in the exhortation to the faithful to present
themselves at the communion. While, in the old form laid down in
the English _Prayer Book_, the minister was required to warn his
flock not "to kindle God's wrath" or "provoke him to plague us
with divers diseases and sundry kinds of death," from the
American form all this and more of similar import in various
services was left out.
Since that day progress in medical science has been rapid
indeed, and at no period more so than during the last half of the
nineteenth century.
The theological view of disease has steadily faded, and the
theological hold upon medical education has been almost entirely
relaxed. In three great fields, especially, discoveries have been
made which have done much to disperse the atmosphere of miracle.
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