[Footnote 1: The following fragments belong to the chapters which were to have treated on the Medical Science. They may therefore appropriately be appended to these chapters on Doña Oliva. I have only prefixed a motto from Butler.] * * * * * “—The prince Of Poets, Homer, sang long since, A skilful leech is better far Than half a hundred men of war.” Such prescriptions as were composed of any part of the human body were reprobated by Galen, and he severely condemned Xenocrates for having introduced them, as being worse than useless in themselves, and wicked in their consequences. Yet these abominable ingredients continued in use till what may be called the Reformation of medicine in the Seventeenth Century. Human bones were administered internally as a cure for ulcers, and the bones were to be those of the part affected. A preparation called Aqua Divina was made by cutting in pieces the body of a healthy man who had died a violent death, and distilling it with the bones and intestines. Human blood was prescribed for epilepsy, by great authorities, but others equally great with better reason condemned the practice, for this among other causes, that it might communicate the diseases of the person from whom it was taken. Ignorant surgeons when they bled a patient used to make him drink the warm blood that he might not lose the life which it contained. The heart dried, and taken in powder was thought good in fevers, but consciencious practitioners were of opinion that it ought not to be used, because of the dangerous consequences which might be expected if such a remedy were in demand. It is not long since a Physician at Heidelberg prescribed human brains to be taken inwardly in violent fevers, and boasted of wonderful cures. And another German administered cat's entrails as a panacea! * * * * * The Egyptian physicians, each being confined to the study and treatment of one part of the body, or one disease, were bound to proceed in all cases according to the prescribed rules of their art. If the patient died under this treatment, no blame attached to the physician; but woe to the rash practitioner who ventured to save a life by any means out of the regular routine; the success of the experiment was not admitted as an excuse for the transgression and he was punished with death; for the law presumed that in every case the treatment enjoined was such as by common consent of the most learned professors had been approved because by long experience it had been found beneficial. The laws had some right to interfere because physicians received a public stipend.