In our researches to discover and fix the period when remedies were first applied for the alleviation of bodily suffering, we are soon lost in conjecture, or involved in fable; we are unable to reach the period in any country, when the inhabitants were destitute of medical resources, and we find among the most uncultivated tribes, that medicine is cherished as a blessing and practised as an art, as by the inhabitants of New Holland and New Zealand, by those of Lapland and Greenland, of North America, and of the interior of Africa. The personal feelings of the sufferer, and the anxiety of those about him, must, in the rudest state of society, have incited a spirit of industry and research to procure alleviation, the modification of heat and cold, of moisture and dryness, and the regulation and change of diet and habit, must have intuitively suggested themselves for the relief of pain;[7] and when these resources failed, charms, amulets, and incantations,[8] were the natural expedients of the barbarian, ever more inclined to indulge the delusive hope of superstition, than to listen to the voice of sober reason. Traces of amulets may be discovered in very early history. The learned Dr. Warburton is evidently mistaken, when he assigns the origin of these magical instruments to the age of the Ptolemies, which was not more than 300 years before Christ; this is at once refuted by the testimony of Galen, who tells us that the Egyptian king, Nechepsus, who lived 630 years before the Christian era, had written, that a green jasper cut into the form of a dragon surrounded with rays, if applied externally, would strengthen the stomach and organs of digestion.[9] We have moreover the authority of the Scriptures in support of this opinion; for what were the ear-rings which Jacob buried under the oak of Sechem, as related in Genesis, but amulets? and we are informed by Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews,[10] that Solomon discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of Epilepsy, and that he employed the aid of a charm or spell for the purpose of assisting its virtues; the root of the herb was concealed in a ring, which was applied to the nostrils of the Demoniac, and Josephus remarks that he himself saw a Jewish Priest practise the art of Solomon with complete success in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the tribunes of the Roman army.[11] Nor were such means confined to dark and barbarous ages; Theophrastus pronounced Pericles to be insane, because he discovered that he wore an amulet about his neck; and, in the declining æra of the Roman empire, we find that this superstitious custom was so general, that the Emperor Caracalla was induced to make a public edict ordaining that no man should wear any superstitious amulets about his person.