The success with which the Priests of Aesculapius carried on their impostures, and the popularity which their dexterous management, no less than the vulgar credulity obtained for them, will cease to surprise us on maturer consideration. It could not be a difficult task for them to give the minds of their patients whatever bias was best adapted to their purposes. These credulous beings passed several days and nights in the temple, and their imagination could not fail to be powerfully impressed with what was diligently told them of the prescriptions and cures of Aesculapius; nor to retain during their slumbers many lively impressions of their meditations by day; their priestly nurses too were neither so blind to their own interests, nor so careless of their reputations as to omit the prescribing of such modes of diet and medical remedies as were calculated to appease their patients' sufferings. Besides which, however delusive and empirical their outward ceremonials and bold pretensions might have been, we should remember, that priests, having some acquaintance with the science of medicine, were generally selected to officiate on those spots where the incubitary process[109] was the order of the day. To this acquaintance were added the results of daily experience, and the frequent opportunities which the incessant demands of the infirm upon their skill afforded them of correcting previous errors and improving their practical knowledge: of gradually ascertaining the various kinds and appearances of human disorders; and of digesting such data as would enable them, with the least possible chance of failure, to prescribe the modes of cure and treatment suitable to the various stages and species of the applicant's maladies. With such means, it would have been not a little singular if the priests of Aesculapius had failed in converting the popular veneration to his credit and their own emolument. FOOTNOTES: [89] The Priestess of Apollo, by whom he delivered oracles. She was called Pythia from the god himself, who was styled Apollo Pythius, from his slaying the serpent Python. The Priestess was to be a pure virgin. She sat on the covercle or lid of a brazen vessel, mounted on a tripod, and thence, after a violent enthusiasm, she delivered his oracles; i.e. she rehearsed a few ambiguous and obscure verses, which were taken for oracles. [90] These words are but ill explained by the best Greek Lexicographers. Servius ad Virg., Aen. vii. 88, says: _Incubare dicuntur proprie hic, qui dormiunt accipienda responsa_. Tertullian de Anima, C. 49, thence calls them _Incubatores fanorum_. [91] Lib. XI. p. 108. Paris, fol. 1620. [92] Ibid. lib. XVI. p. 761. [93] De situ orbis, lib. I. cap. 1.