The references to diseases, appliances, and
curatives, which abound in the Old Testament,
therefore, partly illustrate still further the Egyptian
method, to which are added a limited number of
new processes, some of them divinely inspired.
Circumcision was one of these, which was prac-
tised by the Israelites throughout the sojourn in
Egypt, and the people of that country learned it



i8 A CHRONOLOGY OF MEDICINE.
from them. When the Israelites came out of
Egypt and became settled, the profession of physic
was a part of the duty which devolved upon an
order of the Levites — certainly not the highest
order, whose whole duty was comprehended in the
most sacred office of the priesthood — but physic
was not exclusively practised by the Levites.
These Levitical physicians do not appear from
any portion of the Old Testament to have dis-
covered any disease peculiar to them as a nation,
nor to have adopted any special medicine of
remarkable renown ; but they simply carried out
those rules which they had previously learned in
Egypt. The fact of many diseases and many
medicines being mentioned in the Bible gives
us a clearer conception of the state of the art in
Biblical times, both in Egypt and in Palestine,
than is afforded by the papyri aad stone monu-
ments of the Egyptian period. With regard to
the former, excluding such diseases as are speci-
fically recorded as of Divine infliction, we have
mention of the following : ophthalmia, " Leah was
tender-eyed," Gen. xxix. 17;" consumption, and



MEDICINE AMONG THE JEWS. 19

the burning, ague," Lev. xxvi. 16; "fever," "in-
flammation," "an extreme burning," Deut. xxviii.
22; "a rising," "a scab," "leprosy," "a boil," "a
burning boil," " plague of the scall," " sores," Lev.
