We learn from the _Zend-Avesta_ that the doctrine of Zoroaster teaches that not only real death makes one unclean, but partial death also. The demon claims as his property everything which goes out of the body of man, and that because it is dead. The breath which leaves the mouth is unclean, so that fire, which is sacred, must not be blown with it. Nail parings and cuttings of the hair are unclean, and unless protected by spells are likely to become the weapons of the demons. Whatever altered the body in its nature was demon’s work. On this principle the menstruation of women causes their uncleanness. The menses are sent by Ahriman; the woman is possessed by a demon while they last; she has to be kept apart; she cannot even receive food from hand to hand; she may not eat much lest she feed the demon. So utterly unclean is a woman who has borne a dead child that she is not allowed to drink water unless in danger of death. Logic compelled that a sick man should be treated as one possessed. Sickness was sent by Ahriman, and is to be cured by washings and spells. The most powerful therefore of all medical treatment is magic. It was always more highly esteemed by the faithful than treatment by drugs and the lancet.[326] Hair and nails, which having been cut off have at once become the property of Ahriman, may be withdrawn from his power by prayer, and by being deposited in the earth in consecrated circles, which, being drawn round them, intrench them against the fiend.[327] In the _Zend-Avesta_ it is laid down that a woman who has been just delivered of a child is unclean. When delivered of a dead child, she must drink gômêz. Says Darmesteter:[328] “So utterly unclean is she, that she is not even allowed to drink water, unless she is in danger of death; and even then, as the sacred element has been defiled, she is liable to the penalty of a Perhôtanu. It appears from modern customs that the treatment is the same when the child is born alive; the reason of which is that, in any case, during the first three days after delivery she is in danger of death. A great fire is lighted to keep away the fiends, who use then their utmost efforts to kill her and her child. She is unclean only because the death-fiend is in her.” The Saddar 16 says: “When there is a pregnant woman in a house, one must take care that there be fire continually in it; when the child is brought forth, one must burn a candle, or, better still, a fire, for three days and three nights, to render the Dêvs and Drugs unable to harm the child; for there is great danger during those three days and nights after the birth of the child.”