As time passed on, the charms and other superstitious practices which had at first played so large a part in Babylonian medicine fell into the background and were abandoned to the more uneducated classes of society. The conquest of Western Asia by the Egyptian Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty brought Babylonia into contact with Egypt, where the art of medicine was already far advanced. It is probable that from this time forward Babylonian medicine also became more strictly scientific. We have indeed evidence that the medical system and practice of Egypt had been introduced into Asia. When the great Egyptian treatise on medicine, known as the Papyrus Ebers, was written in the sixteenth century B.C., one of the most fashionable oculists of the day was a “Syrian” of Gebal, and as the study of the disease of the eye was peculiarly Egyptian, we must assume that his science had been derived from the valley of the Nile. It must not be supposed, however, that the superstitious beliefs and practices of the past were altogether abandoned, even by the most distinguished practitioners, any more than they were by the physicians of Europe in the early part of the last century. But they were invoked only when the ordinary remedies had failed, and when no resource seemed left except the aid of spiritual powers. Otherwise the doctor depended upon his diagnosis of the disease and the prescriptions which had been accumulated by the experience of past generations. At the head of the profession stood the court-physician, the Rab-mugi or Rab-mag as he was called in Babylonia. In Assyria there was more than one doctor attached to the royal person, but letters have come down to us from which we learn that the royal physicians were at times permitted to attend private individuals when they were sick. Thus we have a letter of thanks to the Assyrian King from one of his subjects full of gratitude to the King for sending his own doctor to the writer, who had accordingly been cured of a dangerous disease. “May Istar of Erech,” he says, “and Nana (of Bit-Anu) grant long life to the king my lord, for he has sent Basa, the royal physician, to save my life, and he has cured me; may the great gods of heaven and earth be therefore gracious to the king my lord, and may they establish the throne of the king my lord in heaven for ever, since I was dead and the king has restored me to life.” Another letter contains a petition that one of the royal physicians should be allowed to visit a lady who was ill. “To the king my lord,” we read, “thy servant, Saul-miti-yuballidh, sends salutation to the king my lord: may Nebo and Merodach be gracious to the king my lord for ever and ever. Bau-gamilat, the handmaid of the king, is constantly ill; she cannot eat a morsel of food. Let the king send orders that some physician may go and see her.” In this case, however, it is possible that the lady, who seems to have been suffering from consumption, belonged to the harîm of the monarch, and it