[24] The principal employments of the Jews, like those of the Romans in their simple ages, consisted in war and husbandry. Their diet was plain, consisting chiefly of vegetables. Their only remedies were plasters and ointments; which were calculated for those diseases which are produced by accidents. In proportion as they receded from their simple customs, we find artificial diseases prevail among them. The leprosy made its appearance in their journey through the wilderness. King Asa's pains in his feet, were probably brought on by a fit of the gout. Saul and Nebuchadnezzar were afflicted with a melancholy. In the time of our Saviour, we find an account of all those diseases in Judea, which mark the declension of a people; such as, the palsy, epilepsy, mania, blindness, hæmorrhagia uterina, &c. It is unnecessary to suppose, that they were let loose at this juncture, on purpose to give our Saviour an opportunity of making them the chief subject of his miracles. They had been produced from natural causes, by the gradual depravity of their manners. It is remarkable, that our Saviour chose those artificial diseases for the subject of his miracles, in preference to natural diseases. The efforts of nature, and the operation of medicines, are too slow and uncertain in these cases to detract in the least from the validity of the miracle. He cured Peter's mother-in-law, it is true, of a fever; but to show that the cure was miraculous, the sacred historian adds (contrary to what is common after a fever), "that she arose _immediately_, and ministered unto them." [25] In the city of Bergen, which consists of 30,000 inhabitants, there is but one physician; who is supported at the expense of the public. Pontoppidan's Nat. Hist. of Norway. Our esteem for the customs of our savage neighbours will be lessened, when we add, that civilization does not preclude the honours of old age. The proportion of old people is much greater among civilized, than among savage nations. It would be easy to decide this assertion in our favour, by appealing to facts in the natural histories of Britain, Norway, Sweden, North-America[26], and several of the West-India islands.