342 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST . [n. s., i, 1899
and animals, — and how they are kept pure from deleterious sub- stances or conditions. This function of the medical man is of modern origin, and belongs solely to the scientific period of med- icine. We have to thank the medical profession for a vast body of scientific knowledge relating to this subject. It is the glory of the profession that its most arduous labors, its greatest scientific discoveries, and its most enthusiastic pursuits are devoted to sanitation.
Remedial medicine has a long and interesting history. We have already seen, in the account given of Esthetology, how the fine-arts are involved in the superstitions of mankind when they also play an important role in the religions of the world. Now we have to see how these superstitions control the practice of re- medial medicine. In every early society there is used a word which has the significance of " priest " as well as " doctor." The word " shaman " has come to be used as the representative of such words. We have already seen how esthetology was emanci- pated from religion. We must now set forth how medicine was emancipated from religion, for in the earlier stages of culture, when the opinions of mankind were mostly superstitions, religion essayed to control all human activities, and the priest was the dictator in every field of life ; especially was it true of all those tribal and national organizations in which the head of the ecclesiastical body was also the head of the political body, and thus church and state were one. How this state of affairs originated we cannot here set forth in any adequate manner, but we are compelled to refer to it in treating of the subject of medicine, and to make a brief characterization of the nature of early remedies.
Here we must set forth the doctrine of what I shall call im- putation. Imputation is the practice of attributing effects to erroneous causes, as when I impute the pain which I feel in my head to a spell which has been wrought upon me by a witch. A superstition is an opinion which a man may hold by reason of imputation.
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