The world is hardly beyond the beginning of medical
discoveries, yet they have already taken from theology what was
formerly its strongest province--sweeping away from this vast
field of human effort that belief in miracles which for more than
twenty centuries has been the main stumblingblock in the path of
medicine; and in doing this they have cleared higher paths not
only for science, but for religion.[[66]]
CHAPTER XIV.
FROM FETICH TO HYGIENE.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW OF EPIDEMICS AND SANITATION.
A VERY striking feature in recorded history has been the
recurrence of great pestilences. Various indications in ancient
times show their frequency, while the famous description of the
plague of Athens given by Thucydides, and the discussion of it by
Lucretius, exemplify their severity. In the Middle Ages they
raged from time to time throughout Europe: such plagues as the
Black Death and the sweating sickness swept off vast multitudes,
the best authorities estimating that of the former, at the middle
of the fourteenth century, more than half the population of
England died, and that twenty-five millions of people perished in
various parts of Europe.
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