Of the practical value of amulets I may say, without hesitancy, that it is very great. Of course it would be irrational to hold that they act, to any extent, otherwise than through impressions made by them on the mind. Such impressions may undoubtedly be powerful for good. That this is the case few competent to form an opinion on the subject will question. The intelligent reader of history, as well as the scientific psychologist and physician, has abundant reason to know that it is true. I repeat what I have deliberately said elsewhere: “Amulets do serve, in a measure, to prevent disease. Anything which inspires confidence and hope is sanative in its effects. Faith is a powerful healer.”[477] A gem with a symbol of one kind or another engraved on it was, from an early period, an ordinary medical amulet. A common symbol was a figure of Hygeia; and one of Serapis was long quite as common. The name of Raphael (literally healer of God), the patron angel of the early Christians, was often shown on both amulets and talismans. This angel had a reputation as a healer,[478] as the reader familiar with “Tobias” is aware. In that historical book, it is said that when Tobias and Sara were afflicted “the holy angel of the Lord, Raphael, was sent to heal them both.”[479] Tobias was told by him that if he put a little piece of a fish’s heart upon coals the smoke thereof would drive away all kinds of devils, either from man or woman, and that they would not return.[480] A serpent was a very familiar object on gems used as amulets. The later Egyptians, who were great believers in such things, were very partial to it. Among the objects found by General Di Cesnola, in Cypress, was a scarabæoid of banded agate, on which are engraved two asps with a cartouche between, inscribed with the word εχις. In reference to this word he says: “It can be no other than έχις, the old form of εχιδνα, and may possibly be a proper name after the analogy of Draco, not uncommon in Greece; and Echidna, whose amour with Hercules Herodotus relates. Or, if taken in its primary sense the word may constitute an amulet against the asps, still so plentiful in Cyprus, and to be of the nature of those prophylactic rings against snake-bites alluded to by Aristophanes.[481] Arab amulets, at the present day, bear the figure of the thing against which they exert their virtue, and all Oriental practices in this line come down from immemorial antiquity.”[482]