The medical ideas of the Accadio-Sumerian were closely related to his religion; to him the cause and cure of disease were, to a great extent, in fact essentially, supernatural affairs. And thus, indeed, it has been among all early peoples. Nor is it probable that it will ever be entirely otherwise anywhere. The same feelings which prompted the dweller in Elam, or in the plains to the westward, to formulate his religion and philosophy are still experienced by humanity. Even the myth-formers are not all dead. The spirit of all the mythologies is yet alive. There are gods of fancy to-day, as there were when Ana and Hea and Bel were in the ascendant. And they are not very different. The _nomen_, the name, may vary much, but the _numen_, the thing, for the most part, does not. The science of the nineteenth century has not cleared away from the minds of a large majority, in even the most highly civilized nations, the belief that health and sickness are largely subject to mysterious spiritual powers. They are matters of which the populace are still apt to entertain preposterous notions. Cullen well remarks somewhere that he had found even men with trained logical faculties, such as lawyers, satisfied with reasons of any kind, advanced to explain medical phenomena. And in truth the physician deals with matters not readily understood. In the very first paragraph of his book of books, has not Hippocrates himself said: “Experience is fallacious and judgment difficult”? However, it is not to be denied that there are many who sincerely and firmly believe that both health and disease are entirely dependent on the will of spiritual powers. Doubtless every physician has seen instances of perfect resignation, on the death of even a near relative, brought about by the notion that the bereavement was “the will of God.” An innocent child, cut off by diphtheria, or scarlet fever, or some other pestilential disease, which exists only by tolerance, with a tearless mother bending over it, calm and full of the idea that it was the will of the Almighty to destroy it in the bud, as it were, is not an uncommon sight, and one which cannot fail to impress both deeply and sadly the intelligent observer. Impious and erroneous doctrine, to be sure; but, nevertheless, part and parcel of many, nay, most of the creeds of the day.