The doctrine of transmigration of souls, metempsychosis, is Pythagoras’s. He probably borrowed it from the Orphic mysteries; originally no doubt it came from Asia. Asceticism, mysticism, and Neoplatonism sprang from this noble and lofty philosophy. Closely connected with his theory of numbers he held that from these points are produced, from these lines, from lines figures, and from figures solid bodies. The elements fire, water, earth, and air, account in his conception for the formation of the world. He understood the structure of the body, its procreation and development. He believed that the animal soul is an emanation from the world-soul; the universal soul is God, author of himself. Demons are an order of beings between the highest and the lowest. Striving for the good brings moral health. Bodily health means harmony, disease means discord. Diseases are caused by demons, and are to be dispelled by prayers, offerings, and music. He first among the Greeks taught the immortality of the soul; he held a doctrine of rewards and punishments, and taught that of metempsychosis. For many succeeding ages the Pythagorean doctrine had the greatest influence on the art of medicine.[362] Le Clerc says that Pythagoras obtained his ideas of the climacteric years from the Chaldæans. The term is applied to the seventh year of the life of man, and it was anciently believed that at each change we incur some risk to life or health, on account of the bodily changes undergone at that time.[363] Celsus says that the medical sentiment with respect to the septenary number in diseases, and that of the odd and even days, is of Pythagorean origin.[364] The Pythagoreans had a great respect for the number four. The quaternary number was sacred to the Egyptians; they burned in the temples of Isis a kind of resinous gum, myrrh, and other drugs, in the preparation of which they had regard to the number four. The Israelites imitated them in this respect (Exod. xxx. 2).[365] The sacred bean of Pythagoras was the object of religious veneration in Egypt; the priests were commanded not to look upon it. It is thought to have been the East Indian _Nelumbium_.[366] ZAMOLXIS, who was a god to the Getans, is supposed by some to have been a slave and disciple of Pythagoras; by others he is considered an altogether mythical personage. He is credited by those who believe him to have been a physician with having said that “A man could not cure the eyes without curing the head, nor the head without all the rest of the body, nor the body without the soul.” Plato said much the same thing when he remarked, “To cure a headache you must treat the whole man.” Zamolxis cured the soul, not by the enchantments of magic, but by wise discourse and reasonable conversation. “These discourses,” said Plato, “produce wisdom in the soul, which having once been acquired it is easy after that to procure health both for the head and all the rest of the body.”