If we study Rabelais closely we find he was a contagionist of pronounced type, and believed in no other prophylactic against pestilence except flight from the contaminated country. This is what he makes his character “Pantagruel” do when the latter was in a village “which he found most pleasant to dwell in, had not the plague chased him out.” In another passage our author remarks: “The cause of plague is a stinking and infecting exhalation.” It must be added, however, that the plague was endemic at this epoch, and people, on the word of prophets, attributed the cause to divine wrath. The roads were crowded with pilgrims going to make vows and prayers at the chapel of Saint Sebastian. How often had Rabelais endeavored to combat these superstitions! As a proof of this let us make another short quotation from the great satirist: “False prophets announce this lie! They thus blaspheme the Just and the Saints of God, whom they make out to be demons of cruelty. These canting hypocrites, the clergy, preach in my native Province that Saint Anthony gives erysipelas, Saint Eutrope gives dropsy, Saint Gildas makes people insane, and Saint Gildus perpetuates the gout. I am amazed that our glorious King allows these impostors to preach such scandalous lies in his realm; and they should be punished rather than those who, by magic or otherwise, may bring the plague into the country. The _plague_ only kills the body; but clerical impostors poison human souls.” It required a grand amount of courage to hold and express such opinions in the sixteenth century, in the very face of the butchers of the Inquisition. This courage was not acquired by Rabelais from his philosophic studies nor his religious ideas; it was inspired by scientific convictions, of which the Holy Office dared not demand a retraction, as it did in the case of Galileo. _For the Papacy, from the earliest periods of time, has always avoided controversy with medical science._ And we may recall here the device that Rabelais inscribed in his heart, as on the first page of his books: “_To Doctor Francois Rabelais and to his friends_.” He was proud of his medical title, and he considered practice (and we mention this fact inasmuch as an ancient writer has claimed he did not belong to our glorious profession) as a sort of magistral and sacerdotal duty, and demanded, as the first condition for making a doctor, that the candidate for the honored medical degree should have _a healthy heart_. It was for his patients’ edification that he composed portions of his books. He wished to calm their senses by revealing to them the great spectacle of the world; and its purpose is all apparent, _i.e._, to inspire among mankind a love for humanity; having no other personal ambition himself than to play the part of doctor in the _role_ of life, to dress the wounds of the unfortunate, to treat diseases of the body and minister to the low-spirited and downhearted.