In every part of Europe and America, down to a recent
period, we find pestilences resulting from carelessness or
superstition still called "inscrutable providences." As late as
the end of the eighteenth century, when great epidemics made
fearful havoc in Austria, the main means against them seem to
have been grovelling before the image of St. Sebastian and
calling in special "witch-doctors"--that is, monks who cast out
devils. To seek the aid of physicians was, in the neighbourhood
of these monastic centres, very generally considered impious, and
the enormous death rate in such neighbourhoods was only
diminished in the present century, when scientific hygiene began
to make its way.
The old view of pestilence had also its full course in
Calvinistic Scotland; the only difference being that, while in
Roman Catholic countries relief was sought by fetiches, gifts,
processions, exorcisms, burnings of witches, and other works of
expiation, promoted by priests; in Scotland, after the
Reformation, it was sought in fast-days and executions of witches
promoted by Protestant elders.
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