After the time of Paulus Ægineta the practice of medicine and surgery suffered a very rapid decline, and for five centuries no progress was made. The Middle Ages form a dark and melancholy period in the history of medicine, and we have to come to comparatively recent times before we find the skill and knowledge of the Ancients equalled, while it is only at the present day that they are rapidly being excelled. FOOTNOTES: [27] "De re Med.," vi, 33. [28] C. 28, p. 260, ed. Matth. [29] C. 24, p. 242. [30] Lib. 1, c. 20. [31] Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." [32] Barbour, _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, vol. xxxiv, p. 331. CHAPTER XI. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON ALTRUISM AND THE HEALING ART. Essenes--Cabalists and Gnostics--Object of Christ's Mission--Stoics--Constantine and Justinian--Gladiatorial Games--Orphanages--Support of the Poor--Hospitals--Their Foundation--Christianity and Hospitals--Fabiola--Christian Philanthropy--Demon Theories of Disease receive the Church's Sanction--Monastic Medicine--Miracles of Healing--St. Paul--St. Luke--Proclus--Practice of Anatomy denounced--Christianity the prime factor in promoting Altruism. The sect of the _Essenes_ embraced part of the teaching of Christianity among their other beliefs. They conceived that the Almighty had to be propitiated by signs and symbols. Words, they considered, were the direct gift of God to man, and, therefore, signs representing words were of great avail. Hence arose the use of amulets and cabalistic signs, or, rather, the common use, for they had been in evidence long prior to the foundation of this sect. Amulets were worn on the person. The Jews had phylacteries or bits of parchment on which were written passages from the Scriptures. In the first century after Christ, Jews, Pythagoreans, Essenes, and various sects of mystics combined and formed the _Cabalists_ and _Gnostics_. Their creed embraced the magic of the Persians, the dreams of the Asclepiads, the numbers of Pythagoras, and the theory of atoms of Democritus. The Sophists of Alexandria actually regarded magic as a science. A section of the early Christians were Gnostics, and were imbued with the philosophy of the Orientals. According to the beliefs of the Cabalists and Gnostics, demons were the cause of disease. These sects interrogated evil spirits to find out where they lurked, and exorcised them with the help of charms and talismans. Various geometric figures and devices were held to have power against evil spirits. One of these figures was the device of two triangles interlaced thus ✡. This was used as a symbol of God, not only by Cabalists and Gnostics, but also by Jews. The great majority of the early Christians opposed the Gnostics, and repudiated and abhorred their strange mixture of the Christian religion with Eastern philosophy.