Among those who clothed one evil spirit with imperial power, so to speak, that spirit has been mainly held accountable for the occurrence of disease. The Iranian, Angra-Mainyu, furnishes an example. And since the notion of the “devil” (our devil) began,[426] he has been often charged with the offense. Thus, we are told in the Bible that it was he that “smote Job with sores, from the sole of his foot unto his crown.”[427] Still, in this case he was subject to orders, so to speak. Now, it would be strange if, among the evil spirits the exuberant fancy of uncultured man has called into existence, there were not a leading one with the special function of causing, at least, pestilential diseases. Such a one is not met with in the mythology of the Romans, Greeks, or even the Egyptians;[428] but a remarkable one is found in the Accadio-Sumerian, Dibbara, the leader of the plague-demons.[429] He was subject to the orders of Ana and Hea. In the Izdhubar legend of the flood it is said: “Let Dibbara appear, and let men be mown down.” Our knowledge of Dibbara, or Lubara, is largely of modern date. Until the recent translations of cuneiform inscriptions were made, the records of him had almost faded out of sight. On his exploits there is an interesting chapter in George Smith’s “Chaldean Account of Genesis.”[430] His history promises to throw considerable light on passages in the Bible and elsewhere. Thus, his title of “the darkening one” appears to have suggested to the Psalmist the phrase, “The pestilence that walketh in darkness.”[431] He was, probably, the prototype of the destroying “angel” spoken of in the Bible.[432] Dibbara, like many other personifications of evil, partook of the serpentine form. Not unlikely he was originally, to a great degree, similar to, if not identical with, the fabulous dragon combated by Marduk. This was an embodiment of the chaos of the deep, the principle of chaos and darkness. He was the serpent of the night, and may have been primarily the darkness overcome by the sun. CHAPTER XIV. HYGEIA, THE GODDESS OF HEALTH. The need of a special divinity to preserve people in a state of health was widely felt, even in very early times. In Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and elsewhere, this need found pronounced expression. Isis and Istar[433] and Athene were each, in one way or another, accorded great power over bodily or mental health. But the Greeks, in their Hygeia, markedly emphasized and entirely specialized the conception. Here we have an exclusively health divinity, who had more or less of a counterpart in the SALUS of the Romans,—a goddess highly esteemed, worshipped on set days, and to whom a fine temple was devoted at the Eternal City, situated near the gate called from it Porta Salutaris. [Illustration: FIG. 17.—SERPENT AND BOWL OF HYGEIA.[434]]