century, ‘Les différentes sectes s'accordèrent néanmoins à regarder les maladies graves et dangereuses comme un effet immédiat de la puissance divine; idée que Fernel contribua encore à répandre davantage. On trouve dans Paré plusieurs passages de la Bible, cités pour prouver que la colère de Dieu est la seule cause de la peste, qu'elle suffit pour provoquer ce fléau, et que sans elle les causes éloignées ne sauraient agir.’ Sprengel, Histoire de la Médecine, vol. iii. p. 112. The same learned writer says of the Middle Ages (vol. ii. p. 372), ‘D'après l'esprit généralement répandu dans ces siècles de barbarie, on croyait la lèpre envoyée d'une manière immédiate par Dieu.’ See also pp. 145, 346, 431. Bishop Heber says that the Hindus deprive lepers of caste and of the right of possessing property, because they are objects of ‘Heaven's wrath.’ Heber's Journey through India, vol. ii. p. 330. On the Jewish opinion, see Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle, vol. iv. p. 402, Amsterdam, 1702. And as to the early Christians, see Maury, Légendes Pieuses, p. 68, Paris, 1843: though M. Maury ascribes to ‘les idées orientales reçues par le christianisme,’ what is due to the operation of a much wider principle.
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Under the influence of the inductive philosophy, the theological theory of disease was seriously weakened before the middle of the seventeenth century; and by the middle, or at all events the latter half, of the eighteenth century, it had lost all its partisans among scientific men. At present it still lingers on among the vulgar; and traces of it may be found in the writings of the clergy, and in the works of other persons little acquainted with physical knowledge. When the cholera broke out in England, attempts were made to revive the old notion; but the spirit of the age was too strong for such efforts to succeed; and it may be safely predicted that men will never return to their former opinions, unless they first return to their former ignorance. As a specimen of the ideas which the cholera tended to excite, and of their antagonism to all scientific investigation, I may refer to a letter written in 1832 by Mrs. Grant, a woman of some accomplishments, and not devoid of influence (Correspondence of Mrs. Grant, London, 1844, vol. iii. pp. 216, 217), where she states that ‘it appears to me great presumption to indulge so much as people do in speculation and conjecture about a disease so evidently a peculiar infliction, and different from all other modes of suffering hitherto known.’ This desire to limit human speculation is precisely the feeling which long retained Europe in darkness; since it effectually prevented those free inquiries to which we are indebted for all the real knowledge we possess. The doubts of Boyle upon this subject supply a curious instance of the transitory state through which the mind was passing in the seventeenth century, and by which the way was prepared for the great liberating movement of the next age. Boyle, after stating both sides of the question, namely, the theological and the scientific, adds, ‘and it is the less likely that these sweeping and contagious maladies should be always sent for the punishment of impious men, because I remember to have read in good authors, that as some plagues destroyed both men and beasts, so some other did peculiarly destroy brute animals of very little consideration or use to men, as cats,’ &c.
‘Upon these and the like reasons, I have sometimes suspected that in the controversy about the origin of the plague, namely, whether it be natural or supernatural, neither of the contending parties is altogether in the right; since it is very possible that some pestilences may not break forth without an extraordinary, though perhaps not immediate, interposition of Almighty God, provoked by the sins of men; and yet other plagues may be produced by a tragical concourse of merely natural causes.’ Discourse on the Air, in Boyle's Works, vol. iv. pp. 288, 289. ‘Neither of the contending parties is altogether in the right!’ – an instructive passage towards understanding the compromising spirit of the seventeenth century; standing midway, as it did, between the credulity of the sixteenth, and the scepticism of the eighteenth.
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To the historian of the human mind, the whole question is so full of interest, that I shall refer in this note to all the evidence I have been able to collect: and whoever will compare the following passages may satisfy himself that there is in every part of the world an intimate relation between ignorance respecting the nature and proper treatment of a disease, and the belief that such disease is caused by supernatural power, and is to be cured by it. Burton's Sindh, p. 146, London, 1851; Ellis's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 395, vol. iii. pp. 36, 41, vol. iv. pp. 293, 334, 375; Cullen's Works, Edinb. 1827, vol. ii. pp. 414, 434; Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol. i. pp. 274, 482; Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, p. 277; Volney, Voyage en Syrie, vol. i. p. 426; Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 104; Syme's Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 211; Ellis's Tour through Hawaii, pp. 282, 283, 332, 333; Renouard, Histoire de la Médecine, vol. i. p. 398; Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. i. pp. 261, 262; Grote's History of Greece, vol. i. p. 485 (compare p. 251, and vol. vi. p. 213); Grieve's History of Kamtschatka, p. 217; Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. x. p. 10; Buchanan's North American Indians, pp. 256, 257; Halkett's North American Indians, pp. 36, 37, 388, 393, 394; Catlin's North American Indians, vol. i. pp. 35–41; Briggs on the Aboriginal Tribes of India, in Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1850, p. 172; Transactions of Soc. of Bombay, vol. ii. p. 30; Percival's Ceylon, p. 201; Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore, vol. ii. pp. 27, 152, 286, 528, vol. iii. pp. 23, 188, 253 (so, too, M. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Anomalies de l'Organization, vol. iii. p. 380, says that when we were quite ignorant of the cause of monstrous births, the phenomenon was ascribed to the Deity, – ‘de là aussi l'intervention supposée de la divinité;’ and for an exact verification of this, compare Burdach, Traité de Physiologie, vol. ii. p. 247, with Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 113); Ellis's History of Madagascar, vol. i. pp. 224, 225; Prichard's Physical History, vol. i. p. 207, vol. v. p. 492; Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. iii. p. 230, vol. iv. p. 158; Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. pp. 29, 156, vol. iv. pp. 56, 58, 74, vol. xvi. pp. 215, 280; Neander's History of the Church, vol. iii. p. 119; Crawfurd's History of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. p. 328; Low's Sarawak, pp. 174, 261; Cook's Voyages, vol. i. p. 229; Mariner's Tonga Islands, vol. i. pp. 194, 350–360, 374, 438, vol. ii. pp. 172, 230; Huc's Travels in Tartary and Thibet, vol. i. pp. 74–77; Richardson's Travels in the Sahara, vol. i. p. 27; M'Culloh's Researches, p. 105; Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. i. p. 41, vol. iv. p. 260, vol. xiv. p. 37. And in regard to Europe, compare Spence, Origin of the Laws of Europe, p. 322; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iii. p. 443; Phillips on Scrofula, p. 255; Otter's Life of Clarke, vol. i. pp. 265, 266, which may be illustrated by the ‘sacred’ disease of Cambyses, no doubt epilepsy; see Herodot. lib. iii. chap. xxxiv. vol. ii. p. 63.
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Heat, moisture, and consequent rapid decomposition of vegetable matter, are certainly among the causes of this; and to them may perhaps be added the electrical state of the atmosphere in the tropics. Compare Holland's Medical Notes, p. 477; M'William's Medical Expedition to the Niger, pp. 157, 185; Simon's Pathology, p. 269; Forry's Climate and its Endemic Influences, p. 158. M. Lepelletier says, rather vaguely (Physiologie Médicale, vol. iv. p. 527), that the temperate zones are ‘favorables à l'exercice complet et régulier des phénomènes vitaux.’
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And must have strengthened the power of the clergy; for, as Charlevoix says with great frankness, ‘pestilences are the harvests of the ministers of God.’ Southey's History of Brazil, vol. ii. p. 254.
