Our kindred word _imbecile_ has also present reference to those of feeble, dwarfed or perverted intellect, and refers rather to mental than physical defects, though both must often be associated. But originally the lame and the deformed who were obliged to use artificial support, walked as it was said, _in bacillum_, upon a stick or crutch, and from this expression we derive our word imbecile. Let us trace, for instance, again, the etymology of our word _palate_. The Latin _palatum_ is the same as _balatum_, that is, the bleating part. The ancient shepherds of the region of the Campagna watched the sheep as they went bleating (_balatans_) over those hills, one of which subsequently became the _Palatine_. Or take again our word _mania_. It is derived from _unv_ the moon, meaning the moon-sickness, and corresponds to lunacy from _luna_. You see the ancient superstition concerning the influence of the moon abides in the name. This brings up again the old ideas concerning the metal silver which was sacred alike to Diana and the moon, and consequently feminine in sex and attributes. Hence comes the mediæval alchemistic term _lunar caustic_, and hence, too, comes its use in the treatment of epilepsy for which it was formerly much in use, since epilepsy was regarded as a form of mania caused by the evil influence of the moon. By the way, this may also remind us of the peculiar views of the alchemists of the middle ages, who believed that the property of sex inhered in the metals. They believed, for example, that arsenic was masculine in sex, and so named it from _arsen_, male, and _arsenikos_, masculine. Medical, like comparative philology, is the more or less direct outcome of the earth's physical features as they have influenced the commingling of races and the conquest of nations. Medicine seems a science of Aryan parentage; in the Sanscrit the literature of medicine is rich; it was cultivated by the Greeks, but it lost much of its original significance by virtue of Roman supremacy, as the Latin races took it over. Under the Arabians it flourished after a fashion. With the revival of Greek learning there was a restoration of much that had been lost, but the supremacy of the Church kept it within extremely narrow limits, though the clericals could not eliminate all the Arabian words which had crept into its terminology. Greek is to-day the language to which we turn for aid when it becomes necessary to invent new terms by which to indicate fresh discoveries or concepts.