Angromainyu, who is full of death, created nine diseases, ninety diseases, nine hundred diseases, nine thousand diseases, nine and ninety thousand diseases. Thrita desired as a favour a means to withstand death, to withstand pain, to withstand the heat of fever, and the evil corruptions and filth which Angromainyu has brought into the body of men. Then I, who am Auramazda, brought forth the healing plants, many hundreds, many thousands, many tens of thousands, around the one Gaokerena." The invocation then follows: "We bless thee, we invoke thee, we worship thee for the healing of the body of men, in order to drive away sickness, in order to drive away death, the hot fever and the cold fever."[399] Thrita, a spirit of heaven, who has a place among the sages and sacrificers of old time (p. 42) was, in the Avesta, the first physician who kept back disease and death; and every one who follows in his course, every physician, must appear as a willing combatant, an active co-operator against the evil spirits, from whom death and disease proceed. According to the Vendidad, those have the first place among the physicians who heal by charms, _i.e._ by the sacred word, the words of the law; these are the "physicians of physicians;" next come the physicians who heal by remedies; and last of all, those who heal by the knife.[400] These latter must first use the knife on the worshippers of the Daevas; when they have done so three times, and the patient has died each time, they are incapable for ever of practising the art of healing. But if they have healed three worshippers of the Daevas, they are capable of "healing the worshippers of Auramazda, and they can try their skill upon them as they please." The physician is not only to heal sick men, but sick animals also, and above all the sick dog. The Vendidad fixes the sum which the physician is to receive for his services. He is to heal a priest, and ask for no more than his blessing. For healing the overseer of a district he is to receive a yoke of four oxen, and for his wife a she-camel; the overseer of a canton is to pay a large beast of draught, and his wife a mare; the head of a village pays a smaller beast, and his wife a cow; the head of a house a small beast, and his wife a she-ass. For healing a large beast of draught the price is a beast of moderate size; and for one of moderate size, a head of small cattle, etc.[401] Pliny quotes a number of remedies and means of cure used by the Magi, some of them of an extraordinary character; indeed, the impression made on Pliny by the importance ascribed to medicine in the doctrine of Zarathrustra was so great, that he maintained that the Magism of Zoroaster had arisen out of the art of healing, and had introduced, as it were, a higher and sacred medicine. To this was subsequently added the power of religion, and the mathematical arts of investigating the future by the heavens, so that Zoroaster's doctrine