In later times amulets in civilised countries merged into the wearing of images of saints, or consecrated objects, and the use of scapularies by Roman Catholics at the present time. There is little doubt that the custom of wearing precious stones in rings, and the charms worn as pendants to watch chains, originated in the amulet and talisman. Who can say that the belief in such charms has even yet died out? How many people are there at the present day who do not carry about them some coin, token, or object, to which they would probably be ashamed to confess, they attach some mysterious virtue? The belief in keeping a crooked sixpence or a broken ring is evidence of that peculiar vein of superstition that runs through most of us, which, strange though it may seem, the advance of science and education has not altogether dispelled. CHAPTER XV. MONK PHYSICIANS—ITINERANT DOCTORS—SURGERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. The treatment prescribed by the monks, who were ready to cure the body as well as the soul, consisted mainly of holy water, prayer, the touching of relics, and a number of decoctions of herbs, the properties of which they were acquainted with. Many of these physician monks wandered about the country devoting themselves to the wants of the sick. During the eleventh century hospitals began to spring up in various parts of the country and over Europe. They seem to have originated at the time of the crusades. Lacroix says: “The Johannists, and the brotherhoods of St. Mary and St. Lazarus devoted themselves to missions of charity in the East; in France, there were the brothers of St. Antony and of the Holy Ghost; and throughout the world the heroic chevaliers of St. John of Jerusalem or of the Templars, whose countless establishments combined the triple character of conventual church, almshouse, and fortress, and who, attired in a dress both military and monastic, wore a mantle similar to that seen in the statues of Æsculapius, as a sign of the double mission—beneficent and warlike—which they had sworn to fulfil”. Each of these orders had a special form of treatment, and took charge of specific diseases. Thus, the Templars paid special attention to those pilgrim soldiers and travellers particularly troubled with ophthalmia, scurvy, or those suffering from wounds. The Johannists professed the cure of epidemical disease and pestilence. The order of St. Antony looked after those stricken with dysenteries and those complaints known as St. Anthony’s fire, while the Lazarists treated leprosy, small-pox, and pustular fevers. The first school of nurses of which we have record, is one organised by Hildegarde, Abbess of Rupertsberg, who died 1180. These nuns gave great assistance in the hospitals. Thus the monks about the twelfth century tended the bodies as well as the souls, and even accompanied armies on military expeditions in that capacity.