He mentions eructations and sour belching as indicating frigidity of the stomach, and advises the drinking of very hot water before meals. Aside from this, he gives good counsel relative to all the advantages of a sober and peaceful life: “If passion within you wax hot, Pray don’t eat and drink like a sot. Give wine no license; From rich food abstinence; And luxurious peace is your lot.” The author then advises that the mouth and gums be well taken care of, that the teeth be neatly cleaned after each meal, and the entire buccal cavity be rinsed out with an infusion of bitter-sweet plants or leaves. “Puis apres si froterez Vos dents et gencives assez, Od les escorces tut en tur D’ arbre chaud, sec. amer de savur Kar iceo les dents ennientit,” etc. Notwithstanding their want of scientific form, these precepts still strongly contrast with the superstitious practices employed by the monks in the treatment of disease. When holy relics failed the priesthood had resource to supernatural power; they believed in the faith cure; the touch of a Royal hand could heal disease. They took all their scrofulous and goitre patients to Phillip I. and to Saint Louis. These sovereigns had not always an excessive faith in the miraculous gifts they were desired to bestow, but reasons of State policy forced them to accept this monkish deceit, which was regularly practiced by the clergy every Pentecost Day. The _mise en scene_ was easily arranged: the King of France, after holy communion at Saint Francis Convent, left the building surrounded by men at arms and Benedictine friars; then he touched the spots on his people, saying to each of his afflicted subjects: “_Rex tangit te, Deus sanat te, in nomine Patris et filii et Spiritus sancti._”[6] Block pretends that the King of England also enjoyed the power of curing epilepsy, and remarks _apropos_ to this fact that the invention is not new, since Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, possessed the power of curing individuals attacked by enlarged spleen by simply pressing his right foot on that viscera. But this is no longer a superstition to-day, since the age of miracles is past and the divinity of kings a belief almost without a disciple. However, Gilbert and Daniel Turner, physicians of the thirteenth century, give it credence in their writings, but they are fully entitled to express their independent opinion. The priests of the Middle Ages could not employ themselves as obstetricians, neither could they treat uterine diseases. The _ventrieres_ were the only midwives of the period; these women were allowed to testify as experts in the courts of justice, but the burden of proof rested on the testimony of at least three _sage femmes_ when a newly-married woman was accused of pregnancy by a husband, as witness the following: