This devotion to serpent worship appears to have lingered a long time in Italy, for so late as the year 1001 a bronze serpent on the basillica of St. Ambrose was worshipped. De Gubernatis speaking of it says, "Some say it was the serpent Aesculapius, others Moses, others that it was the image of Christ; for us it is enough to remark that it was a mythological serpent before which the Milanese mothers offered their children when they suffered from worms, in order to relieve them," a practice which was finally suppressed by San Carlo. Moreover, there has persisted until recently what is called a snake festival in a little mountain church near Naples, where those participating carry snakes around their persons, the purpose of the festival being to preserve the participants from poison and sudden death and bring them good fortune. (Sozinskey). The power of the sun over health and disease was long ago recognized in the old Chaldean hymn in which the sun is petitioned thus: "Thou at thy coming cure the race of man; Cause the ray of health to shine upon him; Cure his disease." Probably some feeling akin to that voiced in this way gave rise to the following beautiful passage in Malachi (4:2): "The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings." As a purely medical symbol the serpent is meant to symbolize prudence; long ago men were enjoined to be "As wise as serpents" as well as harmless as doves. In India the serpent is still regarded as a symbol of every species of learning. It has also another medical meaning, namely, _convalescence_, for which there is afforded some ground in the remarkable change which it undergoes every spring from a state of lethargy to one of active life. According to Ferguson, the experience of Moses and the Children of Israel with brazen serpents led to the first recorded worship paid to the serpent, which is also noteworthy, since the cause of this adoration is said to have been its intrinsic healing power. The prototype of the brazen serpent of Moses in latter times was the Good Genius, the _Agathodaemon_ of the Greeks, which was regarded always with the greatest favor and usually accorded considerable power over disease. The superstitious tendency to regard disease and death as the visitation of a more or less capricious act by some extra mundane power persists even to the present day. For example, in the Episcopal book of Common Prayer, it is stated, in the Order for the Visitation of the Sick, "Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness be, know you certainly that it is God's visitation," while for relief the following sentiment is formulated in prayer, "Lord look down from heaven, behold, visit and relieve these, thy servants," thus voicing the very ideas which were current among various peoples of remote antiquity and eliminating all possibility of such a thing as the regulation of disease or of sanitary medicine. IV IATRO-THEURGIC SYMBOLISM[4]