"Let every physician, before he begins his treatment, offer up a secret prayer for the sick person, and implore the heavenly Father, the Physician and Balm-giver of all mankind, to prosper the work he is entering upon, and to save himself and his patient from failure." There is good reason to believe that the noble sentiments here expressed were generally those of the physicians of the time; from which we may see that the old Irish medical doctors were quite as devoted to their profession, as eager for knowledge, and as anxious about their patients as those of the present day. The fame of the Irish physicians reached the continent. Even at a comparatively late time, about three hundred years ago, when medicine had been successfully studied and practised in Ireland for more than a thousand years, a well-known and distinguished physician of Brussels,[91-1] in a book written by him in Latin on medical subjects, praises the Irish doctors, and describes them correctly as follows:-- [91-1] Van Helmont. "In the household of every great lord in Ireland there is a physician who has a tract of land for his support, and who is appointed to his post, not on account of the great amount of learning he brings away in his head from colleges, but because he is able to cure diseases. His knowledge of the healing art is derived from books left him by his forefathers, which describe very exactly the marks and signs by which the various diseases are known, and lay down the proper remedies for each. These remedies, [which are mostly herbs], are all produced in that country. Accordingly, the Irish people are much better managed in sickness than the Italians, who have a physician in every village." It is pleasant to know that the Irish physicians of our time who, it is generally agreed, are equal to those of any other country in the world, can look back with respect, and not without some feeling of pride, to their Irish predecessors of the times of old. XXI. THE FENA OF ERIN. In the third century of the Christian era lived the Fena[92-1] of Erin, a famous body of warriors something like the Red Branch Knights of an older time. Their most renowned commander was Finn Mac Cumaill [Cool], King Cormac Mac Art's son-in-law, who of all the heroes of ancient Ireland is at the present day best remembered in tradition by the people. [92-1] Fena, spelled _Fianna_ in Irish, and pronounced _Feena_.