In the thirteenth century very few who possessed either medical or surgical skill were not priests or monks, chiefly mendicants. The profession became very lucrative, and so many monks devoted themselves to the healing art that they neglected their spiritual duties, and were consequently forbidden to leave their monasteries for a longer period than two months at a time.[777] In this century astrology was closely related to the practice of medicine. It was believed that an intimate association existed between the heavenly bodies and those of men, and no cure could be attempted without consulting the astrological oracle. M. Jules Andrieu says that medical science, “like the other sciences, began by being astrological. The first encyclopædia was astrology.”[778] Certainly it was one of the modes most anciently and universally practised for discovering the most important things relating to the lives and fortunes of those who believed in it. It was flattering to men to believe that the heavenly bodies are interested in their welfare, and the events of life were awaited with resignation and composure by those who believed they were regulated by the stars in their courses; they applied themselves therefore to diagrams and calculations to learn the simplest and most obvious details of their lives. M. Littré, member of the Institute and the Academy of Medicine at Paris, in his _Fragment de Médecine Rétrospective_,[779] describes seven “miracles” which took place in France at the end of the thirteenth century at the tomb of St. Louis. He states the simple facts as written in the chronicles of the period. He does not dispute them, does not ridicule nor ignore them, but endeavours to give a pathological interpretation of them. He notices in the first place that at the moment of cure the patient felt a sharp pain—the part affected seemed to be stretched or touched, and sometimes a sort of cracking sensation in the bone was experienced, then movements became possible, although the lengthening of the limb and the possibility of moving it freely were not experienced immediately; the cure was not so sudden, a period of weakness, long or short, always followed the miracle, and the part only gradually regained its use. The cracking of the bone is just what the surgeon finds when he moves a joint which has become fixed by disuse; without breaking down these adhesions, he can do nothing to restore the articulation. In cases of rheumatic paralysis a similar state of things is observed. Of course in the accounts of the healing at the tomb of St. Louis we expect to find errors and exaggerations due to the preoccupation and ignorance of those who wrote the reports, but we at once recognise the cracking and the pain as genuine pathological details; we should not expect a natural cure without these symptoms. To what shall we attribute them? M. Littré gives the explanation in the words of M. le docteur Onimus, published in _La